Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Gets "Thank You" Update That Makes It Steam Deck Verified

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an amazing RPG, and it's so good that it won Game of the Year at The Game Awards two days ago. To celebrate this achievement, developer Sandfall Interactive has released a brand new "Thank You" update to commemorate this achievement. With it, we have a ton of new changes with new content, fixes, and optimizations that brought the game the Steam Deck Verified badge!

The game is currently on sale on GreenManGaming for $35.19, if you want to save a little extra money.

In the full patch notes, there are a few specific fixes for handheld PCs and the Steam Deck. Text legibility has been improved overall, fog and lighting have been fixed in some areas, VSync will be properly disabled in the settings on the Steam Deck, graphical quality has been adjusted for Deck users, and controller input has been improved. There was also a fix for the framerate being capped at 30 FPS on the Deck.

Overall, there aren't going to be major changes to performance, so it's good to keep expectations in check. However, there are noticeable changes. The most obvious are those text and UI size increases, which make skills and each character's special effects much easier to read. This also extends to the UI around battles and, in general, saw sizable improvements. The text size and launcher not being compatible with a controller were stopping it from getting the Verified badge, but those have both been fixed.

There are going to be some visual improvements in specific areas with heavy fog or too many intensive effects, like the Endless Tower or the Visages, which should stabilize performance, but it won't increase it. The best way to play will still be at 30 FPS for the most stable experience, especially in the overworld, but in most of the contained areas, it will stick to 40-45 FPS. With no internal FPS cap for the Steam Deck version, we can mostly play at 40 FPS nicely.

You will still encounter some lighting problems with hair in some scenes, and a majority of the smaller visual issues will still be there, but it's playable and more stable. The game defaults to XeSS Balanced upscaling, so that can be changed, but I haven't done enough testing in more areas to definitively say which is the best to use. Ultimately, the game should look and perform relatively the same as before, but with some enhancements to specific areas and massive changes to UI and text.

Still, for a free update, this is a fantastic improvement, and I would consider the game worthy of being playable on the go.

On top of that, we also have a brand new environment with new encounters, and more to discover, new costumes for everyone, new boss battles, more Luminas and weapons, and a new quest item was added to the final area to give players a second chance to collect all journals within a single playthrough. We also have a Photo Mode to take pictures, new filters for Pictos and Luminas, a new HUD Scale setting, FSR 4 support, a Lumina Sets feature, and more.

It's a pretty amazing update, and to offer it for free is just a treat. I love Expedition 33, and having any reason to dive back in is going to be a welcome one.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is on sale for $39.99 until December 18th and is rated Verified. If you want to save a little extra money, you can get it on GreenManGaming for $35.19.

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