Killer Frequency was provided by Team17 for review. Thank you!
Killer Frequency is a first-person horror comedy where you will need to use your DJ powers to stop a murder spree. As disgraced radio host Forest Nash, you are running a small-time show in Gallows Creek when a murder spree from The Whispering Man begins. Now, using your wits and puzzle-solving skills, you must take 911 calls and save the citizens of this small US town from the terror happening.
Team17 has been on a roll lately with some awesome games that are not only fantastic, but work well on the Steam Deck. I am happy to say Killer Frequency is one of them! It is a little short, but the story and premise, gameplay, and visuals are solid. It was a nice time walking around the radio station and using clues around the building to help callers survive. The puzzles are quite interesting and take some time to think and investigate the place.
There are some minor jumpscares, but there are awesome horror references sprinkled in. You also could save or not save any of the callers and the game would go on, which means some dialogs can change and requires some thinking. Like in the beginning, helping the deputy choose a weapon had me remember what the killer was wearing and think logically about what would work. Overall, I had a blast with the game and I am happy to report how well it runs on the Steam Deck.
Running Killer Frequency on the Steam Deck is very easy and works decently without any changes. At around 12W - 15W, we will see a solid 60 FPS and it looking fantastic, but we can improve it. I felt that the drain was a little too much at times, so I played around with the settings. I discovered the only two that made a difference were the resolution and anti-aliasing. Anti-Aliasing off looked a bit worse, but a resolution decrease to 960x600 with SteamOS FSR looked very close to the native resolution and added about 30 min to an hour of battery.
With these changes, the battery averaged around 11W - 13W, giving about 3.5 hours of battery life with no compromise to stability and framerate. I will reiterate, you can play the game without any changes, but making these pushes more battery and lower temps with minor graphical changes. Just remember to set a TDP limit of 8 to cap off any excess battery drain.
The game supports 16:10 resolutions, so it will take up the entire Deck screen. It also has full controller support and cloud saves, so you will be able to pickup and play wherever you are!
Killer Frequency is a great horror/comedy game that I really had a great time with. Walking around, trying to solve puzzles to save caller's lives, and play some music. And with each person having the capacity to live or die, the investigative work you do could be essential. I loved being able to use surroundings to figure out what to do next and, since it isn't blatantly obvious, did take some critical thinking to deduce. With how well it runs on the Steam Deck, playing on the portable device is by far the best way to prevent The Whispering Man's spree.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Killer Frequency is a fantastic horror/comedy that, with minimal changes, shines on the Steam Deck.
