Far Far West Playtest Shows Potential for the Steam Deck

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Far Far West, a new co-op FPS, has just started an open playtest. We thought we'd give it a go and see how the game performs on the Steam Deck. Bear in mind that this is a really early build of the game (pre-alpha), and the developers state that it's probably at least 2 years before the game actually releases.

Far Far West Playtest - Gameplay Impressions

At first, Far Far West looks like it's just joining a long line of first-person roguelite shooters that have cropped up in the past few months. But it does differ in a few key areas.

Namely, Far Far West isn't actually a roguelite. During a mission, you don't actually get any upgrades; all of your equipment/loadout is decided in the town before you go into the mission. What it does have in common with a roguelite, however, is that you can upgrade your gear after each mission with the currency you accrue.

And as it happens, I really like the upgrade mechanics they've gone with in Far Far West. Rather than just exponentially increasing your power like in a roguelite, instead, you have a limited number of upgrade slots in each weapon, and you have to distribute those upgrade slots between reload time, fire rate, damage, etc. Meaning you have to specialize your weapon in a particular field, rather than just make it overpowered, firing death-dealing bullets at unimaginable rates.

The gunplay isn't anything special; it's decent, but the guns don't feel particularly weighty or anything. Traversal is more fun, as you have "roach", your mechanical horse that you can call on at any time to get across the mission maps, which are large, probably too large.

My main gripe with the game was actually being able to see enemies. The game loves putting you in a dreary/foggy ambience, and that's all very well and good given the theme of the game, but a lot of the enemies are pale colored, and that makes them really hard to see, especially on a smaller screen like the Steam Deck.

The aim assist on the controller is also a little strange. At range, it doesn't seem to do too much, and it's still easy to miss shots, but up close, it's incredibly aggressive and will literally turn your character around in order to focus on an enemy. It's quite annoying.

I also hope we get more variety in the weapons featured in the game. There are only 7 or so weapons in the game right now, and I fear that they might get a bit repetitive to use, especially as that 7 includes both primary and sidearm weapons.

Far Far West Playtest - Steam Deck Performance

Far Far West is a decent experience on the Steam Deck right now. The game has some controller support, which allows most gameplay with the controller, but menu input is hit or miss with a controller. This means you have to swap between controller layouts depending on where you are in the game in order to proceed.

Performance is also a bit of a sticking point on the Steam Deck. I ran the game on the lowest settings, with the resolution turned down to 1152x720, and then set to 80% Resolution Scaling, and I just about got a stable 30 FPS with these settings.

Hopefully, there are some optimizations to come, as the developers do say this is a very early build of the game, and they don't plan to release for at least 2 more years. They do plan on 100% controller support, which is good to hear. Performance itself isn't too bad, so as long as it doesn't get any worse, I'd be happy to call Far Far West playable on the Steam Deck.

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