Blacktail

Blacktail is a first-person game that tells the tale of Yaga, a girl accused of witchcraft and banished from her town. You will confront your past with your archery and magic in this dark story to learn the origins of the Slavic legend, Baba Yaga. Track down spirits, craft, hunt, and gather resources to survive the vibrant fairy tale forest. Choose whether to help or hurt the inhabitants of the forest using the morality system to dictate the Baba Yaga you will become.

Blacktail is a unique experience and has beautifully vibrant visuals and an enjoyable combat system. With some tweaks, it can also be enjoyed on the Steam Deck. The game auto sets a "Steam Deck" graphics profile, which does work in certain areas, but drains more battery and slows down semi-often at 30 FPS. I found that using mostly medium settings, with foliage on low, will bring a more stable experience and allow a TDP of 9 to keep battery under 16W.

I also wanted to figure out a way to play this at 40 FPS since it does feel significantly smoother. To do this, more settings needed to be set to low and I had to force 1024x640 resolution through Steam and use FSR to upscale. It still looked decent and held 40 FPS most of the time with a TDP limit of 12.

The controls do work fine, though there isn't mixed input support, and some text is a bit on the small side. I didn't encounter major bugs or hiccups in my playthrough so far, but I did find a couple areas where framerate drops and battery drains more. This seems to be based on Blacktail loading in new areas and how much you're seeing on your screen. It isn't unplayable though and I am still having fun.

Blacktail is a really cool experience so far. I love the game's unique story, morality system, and archery combat. It runs on the Steam Deck well enough to be enjoyed, and while it could be better, it is definitely playable.

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Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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