Welcome To Elderfield was provided by Kwalee for review. Thank you!
Welcome to Elderfield is one of many games this quarter I’ve had my eye on, and when our head asked if I wanted to review it, this is how it went:
The Head: Do you want to review Welcome to Elderfield?
Me: Of course! Huh, how many farming sims have I reviewed this year?
The Head: People die in this one. And we know how much you like killing things in video games.
Me: Where do I sign?
There is a possibility that I have a problem. Ahem. Moving on! We’ve got a ton of great games releasing in this all-out brawl, and Welcome to Elderfield was a farming sim I definitely wanted to play. Developed by Chris Cote, Elderfield blends together traditional farming sim gameplay with a stunning atmosphere and some welcome quality-of-life changes to create an excellent competitor for the genre.
As the name suggests, Elderfield brings a darker, eldritch setting that enhances the usual gameplay of the genre. Taking place in the run-down town of Ederfield, your character runs across a strange cult that is growing in power in the area, bringing the attention of ancient, dark gods. The story is pretty interesting as the player avatar learns about the growing danger to his home and slowly restores life to the place.
There’s also some dangerous combat that follows a turn-based system rather than real-time combat, which we rarely see in the genre. The combat system is fairly in-depth with a wide range of occult monsters to fight, and it feeds into the constant danger that lingers around every corner. Even looting containers comes with a dice roll event system that can cause damage to your character, although some equipment can improve your odds.
The atmosphere is the true strength of Welcome to Elderfield. We don’t get many farming sims set in such a dark, miserable place, and you can almost smell the decay through the screen. Elderfield is grim and dangerous and does not care whether you live or die. Don’t let the pixel graphics fool you because everything is beautifully animated with strong sound design to back it all up. The whole place is dripping with vibes, and exploring the world brings an awesome mix of challenge and awe. Even going to sleep at night carries risks, with tons of random events playing out that can benefit or cripple you. Sometimes little demons will steal items from you, or one night you might get lucky and have a dark god provide you with money like a demonic version of the tooth fairy.
Combined with the amazing setting, we also get a delightful cast of oddball characters and some great writing. There are some seriously deranged NPCs in this game, and they bring some quests that are certainly… let’s call it refreshing for the genre. On an early quest, I came across a lonely old man who asked me for his help in ‘building’ a wife with dark magic. I did not have that planned for my typical Tuesday night.
The usual farming life sim mechanics are at play here. You farm crops, you fish, you craft, and you mine resources while building up your little hamlet where you call home. There are taxes to pay with dire consequences for failing to pay, so there’s more incentive to get your act together and build up an economy. Every day, television and radio ads reveal more of the world and provide new opportunities for the player, which only adds to the amount of things to do.
I love the little quality-of-life features Elderfield brings to the table. You automatically use the tool that’s needed rather than having to constantly go into the inventory and equip the damn pickaxe again. There is also fast travel via the bus stops, a nice bicycle to ride out of the gate, and you can save at any time by returning to your bed, much like Doloc Town does. The map, while not gigantic, is significant enough that a faster way to get around helps a lot.
Honestly, I have very few criticisms of Welcome to Elderfield, and those I do have are more nitpicks than anything else. The game had a few bugs, which I expected given this was a pre-release several weeks in advance. When waking the Deck up from sleep with the game running, it often hung for a while before registering what I wanted. Finally, the technical performance, while fine overall, is a little heavier than I expected. Welcome to Elderfield is not the most intensive game out there, but it has some impressive lighting and weather effects, so the game is a lot more immersive than most 2D farming sims out there. Also, expect a lot of loading screens. Welcome to Elderfield, which has lots of them as you move between sections of the map.
Welcome to Elderfield is Verified according to Valve on the Steam Deck, and it's fairly playable on the Steam Deck, boasting full controller support out of the box.
We don’t have any real options when it comes to graphical tweaks, which is unfortunate. The only thing we can do is cap framerate to 30, although for some odd reason there’s no way in-game to cap to 60. The only two choices were 30 or unlimited, which is strange. Welcome to Elderfield plays well overall, though the intensive environmental effects and lighting caused a few frame dips.
I tinkered with TDP settings to see how well Elderfield scales, but I recommend just keeping everything on default. It’s strange seeing a 2D pixel game perform like this, especially when competitors like Stardew Valley and Fields of Mistria play great at a 3-4W TDP. I kept the settings at a 50FPS/50hz framerate lock to keep things as smooth as possible while gaining a bit more battery life in the process. On power draw, Elderfield averaged 10-12 watts for me with these settings, with occasional spikes to 15 watts during more intensive scenes. Expect an average of 4 hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED.
Welcome to Elderfield is available in English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. While the game doesn’t have much voice acting, only English has the full audio in the radio channels.
Elderfield’s accessibility options are somewhat lacking, although there are a few things of note. You can change language in-game, toggle autorun, show the sell price of items automatically, adjust brightness and saturation, camera zoom, and text speed. You can also change keybindings, which is nice, although there’s no UI scaling in the game currently.
It is very hard to stand out in video games as a whole, let alone in the farming sim genre. Welcome to Elderfield takes the main gameplay loop of the genre, dips it in grimdark horror, adds a dash of excellent sound and aesthetics, and the result is something that feels truly impressive.
The combination of great turn-based combat, challenging difficulty, an interesting world, and a slew of quality-of-life features turns Elderfield into a game that drips with atmosphere and is deeply compelling. The only drawback is that it could do with a little more optimization, but otherwise, fans of the genre are in for a treat.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Welcome to Elderfield takes the classic farming management sim formula and drips it in atmosphere and grimark horror for an amazing experience. It is also very playable on the Steam Deck!
