RoadCraft was provided by Focus Entertainment for review. Thank you!
RoadCraft is currently being evaluated for Steam Deck performance again. It was not working in our pre-release copy. However, it is working now and we will have an updated SDHQ score soon. Thank you!
RoadCraft was a really intriguing game to me when it showed up last year. I was a big fan of SnowRunner and was looking forward to the Expeditions game. RoadCraft looked like another, unique spin on the franchise. But does it stick to what makes games like MudRunner and SnowRunner so appealing? Well, the answer to that is both yes and no.
SnowRunner was all about you and your vehicle against the unforgiving terrain, you had to plan ahead and persevere through rugged terrain to reach your objective. RoadCraft, however, takes a different approach. Instead of focusing on your vehicle, RoadCraft puts the emphasis on infrastructure. Your vehicle cannot take damage, it does not have fuel, and the functions available to you are purely practical ones for the purpose of building roads or moving cargo; you can't even control your headlights in this one.
What you will mostly be doing in RoadCraft, then, is fixing roads and other infrastructure. While the game does feature almost identical vehicle and terrain physics to SnowRunner, the actual muddy and difficult-to-pass terrain in RoadCraft is in the minority, with most of the roads being fairly easy to traverse, relatively speaking. It's your job to fix up those difficult-to-traverse patches with the equipment on hand, so that supply lines (driven by AI drivers) can deliver goods to where they need to go.
Unfortunately, I quickly found the work to become tedious. You first need to pour sand near the area you want to repair, so you'll need to drive a dump truck to the quarry to fill up with sand, then drive the dump truck to the road, deposit the sand, then get into a bulldozer, level the sand out, then go back into the dump truck, go back to the quarry to fetch more sand, drive back to the road, and rinse and repeat. In some cases, you need to do this a good 7 or 8 times. It becomes mind-numbing.
To combat this, the game allows you to hand over the task to the AI, but that, in turn, defeats the point of the game. You can just assign an AI to build the road, and they will, but then all you're doing is selecting a road to build and then selecting a truck to build it from the map, which isn't exactly much gameplay. The problem is, the AI doesn't play by the same rules as players have to (they have infinite sand, for example), so it's much quicker for the AI to build a road than the player, several times quicker, in fact. It's infuriating that you get punished for putting in all that hard work yourself.
The actual satisfying part comes from when the job is all finished and you get onto plotting the route for the AI vehicles to follow. This is a pretty neat feature, and probably the most interesting part of the game for me, personally. I like seeing the AI make use of the work I've done and watch them travel through a previously impassable part of the map. They're a bit stupid and follow your route exactly, so they can't maneuver around obstacles, even little rocks or barrels, so you have to make sure the route is fully clear before they travel along it.
I did encounter an issue as at the start of maps, you have no equipment available except your pickup. I had to plot a route from a depot to a garage to get it working so I could access my vehicles. Unfortunately, the road between the two was in a poor state, and no matter what I did, the AI truck could not find a path through, as it constantly got stuck in mud, making each attempt more difficult, essentially soft-locking me from continuing. The developers put a "reset map progress" button in, probably for this reason, but it does mean you lose all progress you've made on that map up to that point, which is annoying.
Occasionally, RoadCraft switches things up a bit, requiring you to remove objects such as wrecked cars and miscellaneous scrap from the roads using your bulldozer or a crane, this is less tedious work, but I am super clumsy and usually ended up destroying the terrain while clearing the scrap, meaning I needed to go and fix the road anyway!
Besides repairing and clearing roads, you'll also be tasked with transporting supplies, laying cables, and performing other assorted tasks to get communities back on their feet following natural disasters. This varies the gameplay up a little, but you are essentially driving from point A to point B. Laying cables is both the most interesting and possibly most frustrating task, as it involves digging trenches. Sometimes, you have to dig trenches across roads, meaning you now need to go back and lay a road again; otherwise, supplies can't get through. RoadCraft truly does require the patience of a saint.
I also found that sometimes object locations don't save. I cleared a road of debris to allow traffic through before saving and quitting. Upon reloading the game later, the debris was back on the road, preventing traffic. Terrain deformation also isn't always saved, it seems.
The game has co-op for up to 4 players. Unfortunately, with the way that RoadCraft is structured, you often only have 1 main objective to do at any one time, meaning in a 4-player game, at least 1 of the players is probably twiddling their thumbs wondering what to do. If your objective is to repair a pipeline, only 1 vehicle is needed to carry the pipe, maybe a secondary vehicle with a winch to pull it out of the mud if you get stuck, but what are the other 2 players meant to do for 15 minutes while they fix the pipeline? Nothing, it seems.
There isn't really an exploration element to RoadCraft, as there seemed to be in SnowRunner, so if you aren't doing an objective, there's no real point in going off the beaten track, as it were.
Visually, RoadCraft does look quite nice; it won't win any awards, but it certainly doesn't look bad, and when different weather effects roll in, it changes the overall atmosphere of the game quite well. Sound-wise, the game isn't as impressive, engine sounds quickly become irritating, and when using equipment like the bulldozer, you can hear specific audio files being played over and over; it's not great audio design. There is music in the game, but it's used sparingly as a sort of ambient sound that gets played occasionally and is very much in the background.
You'll also have plenty of content to get through, with 8 decent-sized maps, with increasingly complex terrain and objectives, plenty of vehicles to unlock, including bulldozers, cargo trucks, cable layers, cranes, steamrollers, dump trucks, and more!
I did have some graphical issues with the game on my PC, too. Textures sometimes did not load in fully, resulting in a blurry experience for several seconds before they loaded in, and I had flickering shadows. Hopefully, these issues will be fixed at launch.
I was unable to get RoadCraft to boot on my Steam Deck when I tried. The game gets to the "precreating shaders" part of the loading screen before the main menu, and then promptly crashes before it finishes creating the shaders. I don't know if this is unintended behaviour, or if the developers don't plan on supporting the Steam Deck.
Because of this, the game isn't playable on the Steam Deck right now, at least as of the game's launch.
RoadCraft supports a wide variety of languages, and all voiced dialogue is subtitled. You can disable camera shake and rebind controls.
Is RoadCraft a bad game? Not necessarily, I could see how some people might enjoy it. For me, the game doesn't have the feeling of "survival" that SnowRunner has, where you are constantly trying to plan your own route and trying to protect your vehicle and preserve fuel, and because of the frustrating traversal and nature of the tasks at times, it isn't relaxing like American/Euro Truck Simulator. The game just feels rather... shallow, with similar objectives that take an age to complete, that you have to do over and over.
The best parts of the game are watching your AI Trucks use the path you built/cleared, and the off-road terrain physics and deformation remain as good as ever. Sadly, the terrain deformation is losing its luster after 5 games, and the rest of the mechanics RoadCraft introduces aren't robust enough to support the game.
RoadCraft is also currently unplayable on the Steam Deck; for whatever reason, the game crashes when compiling shaders, regardless of the Proton version I attempted using.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
MotoGP 25 was provided by Milestone S.r.l. for review. Thank you!
My experience with superbike racing games is pretty limited. In fact, the only superbike racing game I've played was MotoGP 06 on the Xbox 360, and my memories of that game are of me repeatedly falling off and sliding down the tarmac on my face. While my racing skills have not improved and have quite possibly declined over the past 20 years, the MotoGP series is still going strong, and MotoGP 25 carries on that legacy, albeit with a bit more accessibility than in the past.
Going straight into the riding feel of the game, and I have to say it feels great to control. There's a good amount of scalability in how "realistic" you want the physics to be. Playing on the more "pro" settings brings back the nightmares I had from MotoGP 06, where going off the racing line, or steering/accelerating slightly too hard, will fling you off your motorcycle and into the gravel, but there's also far more beginner-friendly "arcade" settings.
The "Arcade" settings aren't arcade in the sense of playing a game like Road Rash or Burnout Paradise, but they make riding much more accessible to your average player. If you're fully steering and hit the accelerator on the apex of a corner, it will still throw you off the bike, so the game still demands some fine control. Still, I found this riding style much more enjoyable as someone predominantly used to cars in racing games.
There are a few modes that you can enjoy in MotoGP 25. You can do a "quick" race for yourself, setting up an entire session with practice, qualifying, and a race. You can play online multiplayer, you can do the MotoGP Academy, which are short tests of skill, and you can play in the game's career mode, which is probably what most players will be doing.
There's also a "Race Off" mode, like a sub-section in the game, where you can ride minibikes around kart-like circuits, or Motocross bikes on tarmac circuits. It can be a fun and silly diversion from the main game, with smaller grids and unique environments.
The Career mode is as expected if you've played a Milestone racing game before. You play through a series of races, gradually building relationships with other riders and improving your vehicle via Bike Development. And yes, MotoGP 25 also has the silly fake social media system where you can respond to comments with a positive or negative statement, affecting your relationship with other riders. As one option always seems better, it's still baffling why this system makes it into the games.
What is pretty neat, however, is that the game allows you to play Moto3, Moto2, or MotoGP categories. If you're not too confident, you can select a lower vehicle class and enjoy a slightly more manageable ride. They're still fun to drive, but you'll be going about 80MPH slower on a Moto3 than a MotoGP, a bit like Formula 3 compared to Formula 1.
Another point I wanted to make was that the AI, much like the riding physics, is highly flexible. The game allows you to select AI difficulty based on a percentage, meaning you can lower it as low as 20%, where I was, on average, about 15 seconds a lap quicker than them. I bumped it up to 40% to see the difference, and I was around 5-6 seconds a lap quicker. Having them at around 50-60% seemed like the sweet spot for me as a new rider. However, the fact that they can go much higher shows that the AI should present a decent challenge for most players.
When it comes to the visuals, MotoGP 25 holds up pretty well. You're still treated to some nice visual effects even with lower settings. Riders are animated well, allowing you to see small movements for gear shifts and throttle adjustments. You can even choose from multiple camera angles, including an in-helmet cam, which is as disorientating as you might imagine.
One thing I did notice, however, is that during the race, there is no music at all. I understand that the developers perhaps wanted to focus on the sound of the engines, but at the same time, racing games customarily have background music as you race, and it feels a little odd for that to be absent here. There is your generic "Hype" music that plays in the menus.
MotoGP 25 is a solid little racer. If you're familiar with Milestone racing games, you know how this one goes, but if you like their formula and motorcycle racing, then I think you'll have a good time with MotoGP 25. Nothing immediately stands out as a "problem" to me, and while there are a couple of things I'd have liked, such as music in races, it's a fairly minor issue, and I might be alone on wanting that.
MotoGP 25 supports 16:10 resolutions, including the Steam Deck's 1280x800, so there are no black borders around the screen. It also has great controller support; I wouldn't recommend playing this game on a keyboard.
Things aren't so rosy when it comes to performance, though. While the game offers many graphical settings, the scalability doesn't seem to be there, with the difference in performance between Low and Ultra being fairly small.
In the end, to lock 30 FPS in all racing situations, I had to pretty much set the graphical settings as low as possible and then set FSR3 to Performance. Stress testing the game with a full grid of superbikes on a rainy track, I only got it to dip as low as 31 FPS, but at points, it exceeded 50 FPS.
Unfortunately, MotoGP 25 is a game where you want absolutely no frame drops, as it's a highly precise racer, so I'd rather keep the framerate steady instead of aiming for 40 FPS and having drops into the low 30s on occasion. We do get the occasional stutter, but it doesn't affect playability.
The power draw is around 13W-16W, but it varies depending on the track and weather conditions. Temperatures were around 65C-75C, again, varying. Expect battery life to be about 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 2.5 hours on an LCD model.
MotoGP 25 has many driving assists, with Pro and Arcade riding styles available. It can help you with automatic throttle, braking, and steering (while in corners). You can also have an automatic transmission/clutch, suggested line, and rewinding if you make a mistake. The game can also be played in slow motion in offline game modes.
MotoGP 25 is another entry in a long line of games. I don't think it does anything revolutionary, but playing it safe while offering slight improvements might be enough for players who haven't played a MotoGP game in a while. There's nothing glaringly wrong with MotoGP 25, so this is a safe choice if you're after a Superbike racing game.
Thankfully, we can lower the settings enough to get a playable Steam Deck performance. The image becomes a little fuzzy, but maintaining the 30 FPS is crucial, and we can just about manage it. The controls work fine, and I can say that the game is fully playable on the Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
As a pretty huge wrestling fan who watches anything and everything wrestling-related, I was pretty pumped to give WWE 2K25 a go and review it. Despite not having experienced the last one or two installments, my familiarity with the prior WWE 2K games is pretty high, having sunk countless hours into Universe Mode and downloading hundreds of Community Creations. There is much more of the same here, but better!
WWE 2K25 continues the long-running wrestling video game series, developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports. This latest entry improves on existing mechanics, introduces new gameplay mechanics, modes, and an updated Showcase. This time, it centered around The Bloodline Dynasty. While next-gen console players get exclusive access to the newly hyped “The Island”, PC and Steam Deck users still get a pretty fantastic experience packed full of customization, engaging game modes, and tons of replayability.
Before diving into the new mechanics and game modes, it’s worth highlighting early on that WWE 2K25 has surpassed my initial expectations of how great this game looks on the Steam Deck and how it performs. It is incredible! More on that further below…
Reeling through the new mechanics, we have the addition of a free, third-person camera mode that offers greater freedom to be the cameraman and get some pretty cool angles during entrances, and in the midst of the action. Turning this on allows free camera movement with the right stick. The typical right-stick commands, like pinning or picking up opponents, would then require holding RT alongside them - not the biggest change, so it's worth playing around with. This is especially useful in the more chaotic matches, where you can use this to help see what your Superstar is doing, as it can get a little hard to focus on timing your reversals and actions right.
One of the things I have always loved about these games is the sheer variety of game modes that they include to appease all types of fans. There is quite literally something for everyone here, and while I doubt many will be in love with every facet of WWE 2K25, I’m sure there will be one or two that you low-key become obsessed with.
Chain wrestling makes a welcome return, further refining the technical grappling aspects of the game. This is usually triggered by Superstars who have the technical ability, and you’ll be thrown into a mini-game where you will select your grapple action and try to beat your opponent in finding the right angle to focus your stick on to get the upper hand. We also have the return of intergender wrestling, where men and women can wrestle each other! But unlike previous installments, if you’re in a mixed-tag scenario, the men and women can just go at it, without the need to force a tag!
MyFaction remains a highly addictive game mode where players collect wrestler cards from the past and present to form a faction of four male and four female superstars. Different card tiers introduce unique stats, forcing players to adapt to various match stipulations and rulings, continually needing to grow their collection. Outside of the online play, which I have never gotten along with on WWE games, there is plenty to do.
World Tour is a new area in MyFaction, where you travel across themed cities across the world and complete specific tasks to earn rewards and new cards. For example, Philadelphia, the home of ECW, features more extreme match types, and Rob Van Dam can be found here. We also have Faction Wars, a gauntlet-style mode where your health doesn’t reset after each match and you face progressively tougher "Boss Factions," and Weekly Towers, which offer simpler objectives compared to other modes, providing a unique card once complete.
While microtransactions are present and extremely tempting early on, grinding through MyFaction mode without spending any real money is possible and can be rewarding. My favorite part of this mode is the ability to create unique tag teams and use Superstars you would see or dream of using anywhere else! What would you even call a tag team of Solo Sikoa and Jake “The Snake” Roberts!?
MyGM also returns with its biggest update in a while, introducing online multiplayer. Beyond this, the mode feels similar to past iterations, balancing your booking decisions with frustrating restrictions. MyGM is probably my least favorite area to sink my time into. The mode just feels very light and restrictive. However, I guess that is part of the challenge, and it is still a welcome mode that I am sure others adore. It just isn’t for me.
If you want a freer and more sandbox-style fantasy booking sim, Universe mode is where it’s at. Again, very much the same as last year, you can fantasy book to your heart's content, pushing and burying whoever you wish to, completely overhaul the WWE schedule and weekly shows, add/remove titles, and bring legends back. Essentially, book and play your way, crafting whatever stories you want. It doesn’t provide any of the required strategizing or rulings set in MyGM, it just serves as the ultimate space for your storytelling.
We then have MyRise, which is WWE 2K25’s career mode, and lets you take your custom superstar from Indie Darling to future Hall of Famer. While the story here is never anything special and usually a little silly, it’s still fun and not too long-winded to play through. Your dialogue choices impact small areas of the story’s direction, which leads to different outcomes, and more importantly, different rewards. Rewards include things such as different arenas, outfits, and clothing options, as well as past superstars (such as Scott Steiner, and Alundra Blayze) and earlier versions of current stars (like 2017 Rhea Ripley, 2012 John Cena, and even Cody Rhodes’ Stardust!).
There are also a bunch of MyRise-exclusive characters you meet on your journey who are also unlockable and can then be used in other modes. These rewards are incentives to play through and complete this mode. The only downside is that some of the rewards can only be obtained after a second playthrough.
The final mode that has been a staple in past years is Showcase Mode, and this time around, we go through The Bloodline Dynasty. All those familiar with the Anoa’i family and The Rock’s lineage know that this family has been ever present in WWE, but it feels so much larger when you work your way through the stories told here. What I love about this mode is the integration with real-life moments you get to replay, alongside the ability to rewrite history like helping Umaga become WWE Champion, Tamina, or having Yokozuna annihilate Hulk Hogan. All of these matches are woven between each other thanks to the narration of Paul Heyman who does an incredible job sucking you into each match's story, while also teaching a nice little nugget of WWE history each time.
Every scenario you are thrown into has a long ol’ list of mini-objectives and one or two timed objectives to complete during the matches. Completing all will typically unlock the superstars involved, the legacy arena, and the title involved, too. However, the timed ones were incredibly annoying to complete at times. It's almost as if the AI knew that I had 30 seconds to get them outside the ring and hit two heavy attacks because they just suddenly decided to become a reversal king and keep running away!
If you just want to dive into a Royal Rumble, an Elimination Chamber, or take part in Bloodline Rules, you can do so in the quick play mode. One of my favorite new match types for this year is the Underground Rules match. Here, the ropes have been ripped off, and there is a crowd of onlookers surrounding the ring. The objective? Win by submission or knockout. I’ve sunk plenty of time here, mostly putting legacy titles on the line and trying out some wrestlers that fit the “underground” vibe. Rezar has been my go-to.
There is a Performance Center that walks players through the basics, and it also provides you with in-game currency as you progress through it, allowing you to get a start. The game is pretty easy to pick up anyway, with adjustable difficulty levels.
As touched on earlier, online matches can be fun, but I had a lot of trouble with lag, which seems to be a known issue for some, and certain players have learned to manipulate it to their advantage. This is very annoying when you come across this, and is one of the main reasons I tend to keep WWE 2K25 as a mostly offline experience personally. With the exception of Community Creations, which has some great custom wrestlers based on real athletes, and helps keep the game feeling fresh.
The game looks incredible, the character models are crisp, the lighting and animations exceed my initial expectations, and overall, I am so impressed by how great everything looks. Wrestler entrances, facial expressions, fluid movement, enhanced commentary, and crowd noises enhance your gameplay experience and bring an elevated level of realism to the WWE 2K25.
There will naturally be a slight bias here, given that I am an existing fan of the franchise and sport, and just love playing these games, but I believe that WWE 2K25 is great. Of course, it is that much more special if you are a fan and familiar with the company and stars, but even as a neutral, there is a lot of fun here to be had, balancing realism and simulation with an enjoyable match engine and modes, tons of customization, plenty to grind for and unlock, and flexibility and the variety of ways to play is more than enough to keep you occupied and coming back for more and more.
Controls are mapped well, with no need for any tinkering at all, load times are surprisingly quick, and there is little to no interruption when going from match to match in all modes. There is a lot to love here in terms of performance.
On the Steam Deck, WWE 2K25 runs beautifully. It maintains a solid 60FPS frame rate, with more chaotic matches dipping to around 57-59FPS, but this is not noticeable in the slightest. By default, the quality is set to medium, but you can whack that on high with no dips in performance at all. That is the same for all other areas of the in-game settings. You can max it all out without worrying about any performance dips if you wish to.
The only option that wasn't turned to max was the sharpness when using Dynamic Upscaling. I found that setting the sharpness in the graphics setting to 6 hit the sweet spot for character models, with any less looking poor, and any higher, not looking as clean as it did on 6. But that was my own personal preference, and if you think it looks fine on 10, go for it! You'll still get a buttery smooth performance.
Testing the Benchmarking in-game, throws itself into a chaotic, eight-man Hell in a Cell match with lots and lots of moving parts, with the results only proving what has been shared here, with an average of 59.6FPS, meaning that Visual Concepts has done a great job optimizing this for the Steam Deck. I turned off FSR to see if we could hit a consistent 60FPS in benchmark mode, but it seems to have made no difference from a quality or performance perspective. My recommendation is to leave it on, but you can go either way. One thing I noticed was that cut scenes tend to default to 30FPS, even when amending the in-game settings to 60FPS… maybe a bug, or something, but nothing to really sweat over as they still look great.
The only area that prevents WWE 2K25 from being a “Best on Deck’ game is the battery performance. I found that if you are going from match to match, which you likely will be, the battery won’t last very long. The expected life span is between 1.5 to 3 hours, with the latter half being where more time is spent in menus or modes like Universe or MyGM doing the “admin” stuff. But if you are like me, and grinding match after match in MyFaction, that battery life is going to drain fast…
I tried to extend the battery life a bit by lowering the frame rate, but I noticed that gameplay dramatically slowed down. It did provide an extra half an hour or so of estimated battery life, but with everything moving slower, you are probably going to lose that half hour waiting for the referee to count to three!
In all honesty, though, I can’t complain at all. WWE 2K25 looks and runs amazingly. It seems that the "out of the box" settings are the (only) way to go. WWE 2K25 will be a mainstay on my Steam Deck. Until 2K26 is out, that is.
WWE 2K25 includes a few accessibility-related options within its ‘Extras’ section. You can adjust the difficulty, add subtitles to all areas of the game (besides in-match commentary), fully customize the control layout in-game, and choose from one of two mini-games when using submission moves and pinning. One being a button mash, and the other a more precise method. However, some of these mini-games have a default option in events like Showcase mode and MyFaction, which cannot be amended and therefore may not be suitable for some players.
While “The Island” may be missing for us PC and Steam Deck folk, WWE 2K25 still delivers an outstanding experience, packed with content for all types of fans. Whether you thrive on the competitive grind of MyFaction, enjoy the creative freedom of Universe Mode, or just want to jump into quick matches with your favorite superstars, there’s no shortage of ways to play. The game excels in customization, variety, and replayability, with impressive gameplay, visuals, and performance, especially on the Steam Deck, making it one of the strongest entries in recent years.
That said, the game isn’t perfect. Online play still suffers from frustrating lag issues, and MyGM, while improved in some areas, remains restrictive and the weakest, least complete part of WWE 2K25. Battery life on the Steam Deck is also something to keep in mind if you’re planning long play sessions on the go. But these are all minor gripes in what is otherwise a (Dwayne “The) Rock”-solid wrestling game that blends realism with arcade-y fun in all the right ways.
If you’re a longtime WWE 2K player, I reckon you’ll find plenty of refinements and new additions to keep things fresh. If you’re new to the series, this is one of the best jumping-in points in years. It’s not perfect, but with its deep customization, stacked game modes, and rock-solid gameplay, WWE 2K25 delivers an entertaining and addictive experience.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Assetto Corsa EVO was provided by 505 Games for review. Thank you!
Assetto Corsa EVO is in Early Access and the content and performance of the game is subject to change, this review is based on Version 0.1.4 at the time of writing.
I was very excited to hear about Assetto Corsa EVO when it was first announced and even more excited when I got to review it. The game takes a slightly different approach to its predecessor, Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC). It's more akin to the original Assetto Corsa, with a focus on the single-player experience, whereas ACC was largely focused on hosting online leagues and tournaments.
In fact, Assetto Corsa EVO does not currently have multiplayer elements, although multiplayer is planned for later in 2025. Instead, we are presented with more of a foundation for what is to come rather than a complete game.
The best word to describe the content available in Assetto Corsa EVO right now is 'barebones.' Regarding ways to play, there are only single-player practice sessions around a choice of 8 tracks, based on 5 locations, and quick races, also on those tracks. You'll also have 20 cars to drive, from an Abarth 695 to a Porsche 911 GT3 or Ferrari 488.
So, in terms of content, the game is quite lacking, especially considering the price tag of $39.99; you are definitely purchasing Assetto Corsa EVO to invest in its development to become the game that developers are saying it will be.
The main aspect of a driving simulation game like this is the physics. And I will say, the physics of Assetto Corsa EVO feel great. I was playing on an Xbox gamepad, and while games like ACC could be difficult to play on a gamepad, Assetto Corsa EVO doesn't feel that way. With some basic assists in place, as long as you drive well, it's perfectly possible to have a clean (and fast) race using just a gamepad. I think this is a great thing for EVO, especially as it caters to those interested in a single-player experience and not just online leagues.
That doesn't mean a wheel won't be faster or safer, though. If you start getting into a skid, the force feedback makes it much easier to correct. Likewise, when my Ferrari 296 began fishtailing on Laguna Seca, it was difficult to regain control on a gamepad due to the lack of force feedback. After a few poor reactions, the car spun completely.
Likewise, how your car drives changes drastically depending on the surface you're on. While it's easy to maintain control on the track, put a wheel onto the grass or dirt, and you can expect a sudden loss of traction, as you would in real life. Even worse, the terrain isn't smooth anymore, and your car can easily bump into the air from the rough terrain, making braking or steering difficult. Rainy weather also makes controlling the car a challenge; you'll need to maintain good throttle control at all times or risk spinning your wheels, and you'll need to compensate for the wet track by braking far earlier than you would expect.
So the physics seems pretty solid, but how about the AI, seeing as they are your main (and currently only) opponents in Assetto Corsa EVO? They're a bit of a mixed bag, but they do the job pretty well when left to their own devices. There are a couple of oddities, such as their habitually scraping against the pit wall on Laguna Seca, which could cause them to spin out or veer across the track in reaction to the collision. They will also make natural mistakes, such as going slightly offline/off track or accidentally cutting a corner, making them seem more human-like.
The problem with the AI comes when they have to interact with the cars around them. While the AI seems to cope fairly well with side-by-side racing, they seem less competent when you're in corners. If you brake slightly too much, the AI doesn't seem to respond and will simply hit into the back of you, and once you're spinning and they're pushing you, they will continue to accelerate, a move that would get you banned in an online league.
The AI seems to position itself quite well in response to the cars around it, but it doesn't seem to want to compromise its own race by slowing down in order to avoid a collision, something that is part of (serious) racing. I can't be too harsh on the AI, it does do a decent job of simulating perhaps a rookie human driver, but it's no replacement for racing against skilled fellow humans.
Now comes the presentation, which Assetto Corsa EVO crushes. The game looks pretty great, and even in the lowest settings, the cars can rival the appearance of other games like Gran Turismo and Forza. On the higher settings, the detail is beyond those games. Track environments are detailed, plenty of trees and foliage (depending on graphics settings), and the rain looks great on the windshield. The sounds likewise have a lot of detail; they are not just one-note sound effects, and the engines feel like they have depth.
Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. The game is difficult to run, even on a mid-range gaming PC. With my Ryzen 5 5600 and AMD RX 6600 XT (8GB), a full-grid (30 cars) race in the rain is unplayable even on the lowest settings at 1080p. If I lower the grid to 8 cars, I can play at around 30 FPS at 1080p Very Low settings. This seems like a VRAM issue, as even on the main menu the game is using 7GB of VRAM. So, I wouldn't recommend you purchase Assetto Corsa EVO unless you have a graphics card with at least 12GB of VRAM.
Unfortunately, Assetto Corsa EVO struggles to run on the Steam Deck. While I could get into a practice session on Mount Panorama, this was only by lowering the settings to the absolute lowest they could go, along with FSR 3 on Ultra Performance quality. The game still used over 7GB of VRAM to accomplish this.
The frame rate was actually decent, often above 50 FPS, but the high VRAM usage makes the game unstable. As soon as I attempted to start an actual race, my Steam Deck crashed entirely to a black screen, forcing me to hard reset the device—even with a 4G UMA Buffer set in the BIOS.
While we may see optimizations in the future, the game is using 7GB of VRAM on a track with a single car and no weather conditions to manage, which means that it's unlikely we'll see the game run well on Steam Deck.
Assetto Corsa EVO has rebindable controls and some driving assists, such as ABS and Traction Control, but no general accessibility options.
Assetto Corsa EVO, in its current state, has some promise. Assetto Corsa EVO's The driving physics is impressive and some of the best I've experienced. The graphics and sounds are also fantastic. But right now, the content is thin on the ground, the AI needs to be polished, and the game's optimization is poor. Is it worth the $40 price tag? At the moment, no. Only those who wish to support future development should buy the game right now, as there isn't much of a "game" to speak of as of writing.
And due to the poor optimization and high VRAM usage, Assetto Corsa EVO, unfortunately, isn't playable on the Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Zoochosis was provided by Clapperheads for review. Thank you!
This review was created using an LCD Steam Deck. OLED testing will be carried out at a later date.
Zoochosis is an intriguing little game. I like animals more than most humans, and a horror zoo simulation game grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, it is that unpleasant mix of great ideas and middling execution. It is a shame because the game’s atmosphere has some potential. However, I believe Zoochosis has a worthy player experience, although I recommend waiting for a deep sale before diving in.
Zoochosis isn't your average zoo simulator. Favoring a bodycam, from a first-person point of view, you take on the role of struggling father Paul, who is applying for the lucrative role of a zookeeper at a mysterious reserve called Pine Valley Zoo. With economic turmoil threatening the future of his family, Paul needs this job to secure a healthy life for his wife and daughter and is determined to go along with the job, even as things deeply go to shit.
I appreciate how they approached the mechanics, although they could be better implemented. These could have been tutorial prompts, but players have an immersive way of learning how to play instead. Even with the game’s short runtime, I preferred this approach. For instance, when I failed to tranquilize the sick giraffe, I expected to have to repeat the attempt. Instead, Oliver finished the training, citing how he could not be bothered to tell me again. That made me laugh, even when I wanted to shoot him with the gun. Sadly, the game would not let me.
While the game's visuals are average, the creepy sound design and the oppressive lighting sell the mood of the place. I noticed some severe voice clipping in dialogue, as the characters responded to each other almost before the other finished their sentence. However, I liked the Doctor’s character: an impatient, passionless asshole that belittles you.
Despite the short runtime, Zoochosis's mechanics are quite detailed. Players have plenty to do during their trial night, including carrying food into the cart by hand, pulling it along tram tracks, storing it inside the train, chopping ingredients, and caring for the animals.
Caring for the animals involves making sure they have the correct food, sucking up their feces with the handy vacuum and storing it for analysis, keeping an eye on their temperature with the heat gun, correctly diagnosing their illnesses, and injecting them with the proper medications to keep them ‘healthy.’
If the animals get out of control, you must fight them into submission, which is quite a challenge given your limited tools. While it was clunky with little room for error, I appreciated how realistic it felt. Paul is a zookeeper, not a marine.
The tension and narrative of Zoochosis ramp up fast, and it becomes clear that this is a terrible workplace. Strange monsters climbing through walls, wild critters jumping out, and frantic phone calls about missing coworkers are some of the treats awaiting you. I don’t like the jump scares as a horror mechanic, but some moments made my flesh crawl.
For instance, I was ordered to bring in a fresh ‘supply’ of meat to be chopped up. That turned out to be a live, naked woman whose sedatives wore off by her screaming for help. Oh, and the Doctor has you injected with a parasite from some abomination called ‘The Mother’. It’s pretty unsettling, and Paul has to work with an outside journalist to work on a cure and expose Oliver’s horrific crimes.
Zoochosis can be completed on a short weekend, and I appreciate it for not drawing things out past their welcome. The story did not surprise me at any point, but there are multiple endings to discover. Sadly, I got one of the bad endings. Players can only access the one good ending by curing all the sick animals, which makes sense. However, because of the game's autosaves, there is no way to return to a previous point, so players will need to start another game to see if they can get a different ending. While autosaving makes sense in short games, I do wish there were manual saves so I could go back to get a different ending without needing to restart entirely.
There aren’t any shortcuts, and the slow animations of accessing an interface, collecting and chopping food, depositing inventories, and moving the cart along the rails pad out the game far more than necessary. I like immersive games, but when that immersion is in the way of enjoying the game, I feel it’s a problem. I felt no desire to start a new game once I finished.
While I enjoyed Zoochosis' atmosphere, the gameplay felt like it was stumbling over its own feet. Despite the game’s handful of hours, most of that is taken up by the pacing of animations, which is plodding to the point of boring. That is probably the point because working in a zoo of horrors while trying to survive isn't riveting. Still, I grew increasingly frustrated with how long it took to complete anything.
In fairness, developer Clapperheads has been steadily improving the game since its launch with patches and content updates, but there is still a fair bit of jank to contend with. Most of these bugs were oddities like animals clipping through terrain or each other, floating objects, and the audio bugs I mentioned earlier. When moving into an animal enclosure, I had one infinite loading screen and a hard crash that forced me to reboot. While I only lost 20 minutes of progress, the lack of manual saving and tedious player actions made getting back to where I was more frustrating.
I also encountered a couple of navigation issues. This was more prevalent in the training montage, but the dark environments sometimes made it difficult to find what I needed.
Finally, the game needs more content. Zoochosis has some impressive management mechanics that could be applied to a free-play mode. The gameplay has a lot of depth, but the short story length is almost a detriment. I would like to see some free-play additions to the game, as it would add much-needed replayability. Its current offerings make it hard to justify the $25 price tag.
While Zoochosis is playable on the Steam Deck, I found it a woeful player experience. Things get off to a bad start on the main menu. The game is locked to 30FPS automatically, with no options to change that in the settings. Furthermore, no graphical options are showing on the Deck. Whatever performance you have is what you can get, which is even more unfortunate when the game struggles to hit 30 FPS, even without any limits.
I found this baffling, given that the graphical settings are present in the PC version and that a patch in November was said to have improved the Steam Deck performance. I tried various things to get it to show up, including reinstalling the game, changing Proton versions, and adding the "SteamDeck=0 %command%" launch option in Properties. None of these attempts worked, which is unfortunate. I’m unsure what is happening, and perhaps someone else will have better luck than I did.
With few options available, I had limited choices on how to proceed. That doesn’t mean that Zoochosis is entirely unplayable, as the standard controls worked great, and I could still play through the game.
The power drain still surprised me, given how much the Steam Deck struggled with the game. I was pulling over 20 watts on average, which translated to less than 2 hours of battery life. I tinkered with TDP settings to find a decent battery life without sacrificing too much performance. Limiting the TDP with a 40hz refresh rate averaged around 20 FPS during gameplay while keeping the battery draw around 14 watts. This improved battery life significantly, but the performance drop is too steep to recommend.
So, the best way to experience the game is without changing anything. It is playable, but it won't particularly be enjoyable.
Zoochosis is available in English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America, Turkish, Ukrainian, Spanish - Spain, Arabic, and Portuguese - Portugal. However, only English has full voice acting right now.
Players can toggle nudity, subtitles, bodycam, sprint mode, and auto-aim. You can adjust the brightness, toggle colorblind mode, change controller vibration, change gamepad sensitivity, and toggle the invert look vertically or not.
Zoochosis is a polarizing game as the reviews on the Steam Store suggest. It is an enjoyable horror sim with a great atmosphere. There are some truly disturbing moments throughout its story, and it puts quite the twist on a zoology game. I wish we had more games around managing zoos, and the developers have put a lot of heart into creating it.
Unfortunately, the ponderous gameplay and overall janky nature have brought down my enjoyment of the game. My shoddy experiences of Zoochosis on the Steam Deck do not help that. The mechanics are surprisingly in-depth for a bodycam game, but the short story means we do not have enough time to enjoy those mechanics without some free-play mode.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Farming Simulator 25 was provided by Giants Software for review. Thank you!
It's time for a brand new Farming Simulator! But is brand new the right word for it? Or is Farming Simulator 25 merely a small upgrade over Farming Simulator 22? It's actually a story of two halves, so let's get into it and see what this iteration of the series is all about.
As you've come to expect from the series, Farming Simulator 25 brings a collection of new vehicles for you to own. Gone are the days of Farming Simulator 15 where you only had access to a paltry collection of 140 vehicles from over 40 manufacturers. Farming Simulator 25 boasts over 400 vehicles from over 150 manufacturers. I'm not quite sure why you need this amount of selection, but maybe that's because I'm not super into the whole farming ecosystem. If you're a farmer or are at least familiar with farming equipment, you can likely find your model in Farming Simulator 25.
One of the major new additions to the Farming Simulator franchise that was touted for Farming Simulator 25 was the addition of "Asian-style" farming. Farming Simulator has historically been focused on Europe and North America for its locations, but now the franchise has expanded to include an Asian map. So is this new map worth all the fuss?
I could take or leave the new map itself. The maps and world of Farming Simulator have always been a bit of a letdown for me, and the new Asian map is no exception. Largely, the map looks like any other map when you're out in the rural areas. Only once you enter the town does the game give an "Asian" vibe, mostly due to the neon signs outside the buildings. Unfortunately, the Asian map still uses many assets from the Western maps, meaning all signs are in English, and the neon-lit streets look dead due to a lack of pedestrians and traffic.
The exact location of where Hutan Pantai (the Asian map) is based isn't made clear either. The name is Indonesian, but the traffic drives on the right, which wouldn't be the case in a place like Indonesia or Japan, which drives on the left. So, instead of focusing on a specific country, the developers just focused on a large region with many cultures and designed the map around that. This design philosophy likely made the map feel generic and not very immersive. The majority of the map could easily be set in America or Europe.
Another set of improvements touted by the developers is the visual ones. While my ability to test these on the Steam Deck is somewhat limited, as we can't run at full graphical settings, the game does look pretty nice, and there are plenty of rendering techniques on display here, such as bloom, depth of field, good quality shading and lighting, as well as ambient occlusion. This combines to create a nice-looking image where metal reflects the sun, trees provide nice shading, and dirt adorns your vehicles as they work.
Ground deformation was also mentioned as an improvement to visuals and gameplay, although I didn't particularly notice this when I played. My trucks/tractors made slight grooves in the soil, but nothing that would actually affect the gameplay in any meaningful way, and it looked more like a tire track visual effect than actual deformation of the terrain.
Farming Simulator 25 also brings in new weather effects, including disasters such as twisters and hail, which can damage your crops. I found these to be rare, however. After playing an in-game year, which is several hours of playtime, I only experienced 1 bout of snow and hail in an entire crop cycle, with probably <5% of playtime having a weather effect active. Even though the game is supposed to have settling snow and snow physics, the snow never truly settled on the ground, and the vehicles drive the same in wintry conditions as they do in summer. Overall, it's pretty disappointing.
New crops have been added, but they function the same as the other crops in the game, so getting too excited about them is hard. Likewise, baby animals have finally been added to the game, which has some impact on gameplay, but I found myself buying animals rather than trying to breed them. The time saved probably outweighs the money saved.
Aside from these aspects, it's largely "business as usual" for Farming Simulator 25. All of the features you enjoyed in Farming Simulator 22 have carried over, and it follows the same love-it-or-hate-it gameplay of... well, farming. You'll be planting and harvesting, all with that thrill of loading up your trucks with grain from your fields, then you'll be getting confused about where to sell your wheat, and then finally stumbling upon the place that's buying wheat and making 25 cents, only to rinse and repeat. You can also do all of this with up to 16 players in multiplayer.
The vehicles perform identically to Farming Simulator 22, with the same control scheme and physics. It's still a joy to manually adjust your harvesting head and switch it on/off to begin harvesting, and swing the pipe out of the side to load up a trailer truck driving beside you as you harvest. There are no changes here, but it was always a highlight, so no changes are good.
So, is Farming Simulator 25 a revolutionary improvement for the series? No, but I wasn't expecting it to be either. I will say that they don't seem to have made anything worse, which isn't always a given these days. The visuals are nicer, the game seems pretty well optimized aside from some stuttering, and you have more variety in what you can do, such as more crops to grow and additional ways to earn money, like construction projects.
You also have access to a wider variety of vehicles and tools, and they are laying the groundwork for interesting features in the next Farming Simulator, even if they aren't there yet, such as natural disasters and terrain deformation.
Would I recommend you buy Farming Simulator 25 if you already own Farming Simulator 22? Probably not, the upgrades are marginal and unless you are a hardcore Farming Simulator fan, it's probably not worth the price right now. Running Farming Simulator 22 with mods can give you a nicer experience right now, but in a year, when Farming Simulator 25 mods catch up, some patches have been introduced, and the game is on sale, it might well be worth the upgrade.
Farming Simulator 25 covers the Steam Deck basics of having good controller support while supporting 1280x800 resolution, meaning no black borders around your screen. We also have some nice extra technologies like Intel's XeSS and AMD's FSR3.
There are many graphical options in Farming Simulator 25, but I've kept it fairly simple by choosing a preset and then modifying a couple of settings to make for a more stable experience. It should be easy for you to copy the settings yourself.
Set the SteamOS frame rate limit to 60, and there's no TDP Limit for this one.
I'm using a modified version of the Medium preset, so go ahead and set your game to the Medium settings, turn VSync to Off, set your Framerate Limit to 30, set your in-game HUD Scale to 125% for easier-to-read text, then press the "X" button to open the advanced graphics menu, and adjust the following settings:
Switch SSAO down to Medium, Terrain Quality down to Low, Light Quality to Medium, Max Mirrors to 0, Post-Process Anti-Aliasing to Off, and FSR 3 to Quality. The game does have frame generation, but as our FPS is on the lower side, it introduces too much input lag to be nice to play.
These settings smooth out the Medium preset a lot, especially disabling Mirrors, as with them on, you'll get severe stutters when switching to a cockpit view.
With these settings, I got a pretty constant 30 FPS during play. Very occasionally, the FPS dropped to 28 or 29 when in one of the cities, but the game remained perfectly playable.
The power draw tends to stay around 12W-14W, but it can go as high as 16W in the towns. You can likely expect about 2.5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck LCD and around 3.5 hours from the OLED.
Temperatures stay lower in the 60C-65C range, with slight fan noise.
Performance in multiplayer games seems considerably worse than single-player, with a much heavier load on a single CPU thread, seemingly caused by player activity when multiple players are driving. This means that you'll struggle to stay above 25 FPS in larger multiplayer games, although if you are just playing with 2-4 players, you might get away with it.
Farming Simulator 25 has a few accessibility options, such as adjusting the game's economic difficulty, simplifying the crop cycle, colorblind mode, disabling what is akin to camera shake/sway, and various assists/simplifications for controlling vehicles.
Farming Simulator 25 talks a big game about the new features it has over previous iterations of the series. But those changes aren't quite big enough for me to recommend that you dive in right now. Give mods some time to catch up to the level they are in Farming Simulator 22, fix a couple of collision bugs I encountered, and maybe go on a sale, and then it's worth the upgrade.
Farming Simulator 25 runs well on the Steam Deck for the most part. The controls are great, and while performance in larger multiplayer games borders on unplayable, if you play solo or with a small group, it should run just fine.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Expeditions was provided by Focus Entertainment for review. Thank you!
This game was tested with a Steam Deck LCD. OLED testing is coming soon.
I was so excited when I got the news that I'd be reviewing Expeditions: A MudRunner Game. Having been a pretty big fan of SnowRunner (the previous game in the series), especially in the co-op mode, I couldn't wait to see what this next installment had to offer! Expeditions is a little bit of a departure from what you might be used to with the MudRunner series, but don't worry, the core gameplay is still there and as enjoyable as ever.
Expeditions is a little bit of a departure from this standard. Instead of putting you aimlessly on a map, it is more "mission-based.". Before spawning into the game world, you will select a mission, select the truck and equipment you wish to take with you and spawn into the world. You also own all the trucks from the get-go, with some options to upgrade them. These missions can take around 10-15 minutes, as opposed to the potentially hours-long open-world quests from the older games, which fans have a mixed response about.
The game is split into 3 regions, which themselves are then split into 4, making 12 maps present in the base game, each of which has around 6-8 missions. This doesn't remove all the exploration aspects; you'll still be able to drive around the map inside a mission and discover points of interest. A free-roam mode is also available once you've finished some missions on that specific map.
It's worth noting that if you do want a more "realistic" experience, you can disable waypoint and objective marker visibility, meaning you're reliant on the in-game map and manual pathfinding to get to locations, much more akin to SnowRunner and MudRunner.
But then there's the flip side of the coin. MudRunner and Spintires, before it established itself as a "simulation" series, focused on brutal and arduous journeys that took their toll on the vehicles and drivers alike. Some fans felt that SnowRunner took it easy on players, and those fans will likely find that Expeditions takes it a step further. In my experience, there isn't much 'challenge' to be had; getting stuck in the mud is rare here, you have more equipment to help you out of situations, and journeys are much shorter due to the smaller map sizes.
There is now far more equipment you can equip your vehicle. Likely because you already own all the vehicles in the game from the start, Expeditions instead adds more customization, allowing you to modify your vehicles to serve different purposes. For instance, there are Jack Screws, which can right a flipped vehicle. And Anchors, which can provide winch points for stuck vehicles. You can also carry repair kits, spare wheels, and extra fuel in your vehicle with you.
Every vehicle now has inventory and device slots, defining how much and what they can carry, and upgrades can expand this amount by providing more cargo space or adding additional mounts. This feels like a core gameplay element that is pushed in Expeditions. The developers want you to feel like you are designing a "loadout" for each mission, deciding what equipment you'll need for the job, what vehicle can carry that equipment, and dealing with the terrain you'll be facing. And for the most part, that works just fine.
Speaking of devices, you now have a few handy tools on your vehicles, including the ever-faithful winch. You now also have a sensor that can detect water depth so you don't drive into a "puddle" that suddenly becomes a lake, as well as a drone which you can fly around within 75 meters or so of your vehicle and effectively "free cam" the area, allowing you to plot a route through a particularly rough area, or just find where you need to go.
Is Expeditions truly a "MudRunner" game? It shares many things in common, such as how vehicles drive, and how they react to the terrain, but this very much feels like MudRunner "Lite". I'll be honest: most of my time playing was accepting a mission, doing the mission by simply following waypoints, and having no idea why I was doing the mission in the first place. There are a few lines of text before each mission detailing some basic story, but it's essentially all throw-away stuff and doesn't make you feel like there's much meaning or purpose to what you are doing in the game.
I enjoy driving my truck around, but I think it will struggle to keep me entertained as long as SnowRunner did, especially as I can't see the Cooperative mode being nearly as good on smaller maps with enforced missions. And as a side note, Cooperative play isn't in the game at launch; it's being added to a free post-launch update a few months later.
Expeditions gets off to a good start on the Steam Deck. The game defaults to the Steam Deck's native 1280x800 resolution with full controller support for menus and gameplay. The UI is also scaled well, and although there's no option to change the UI scale, I didn't particularly feel the need to either.
The game also offers a wide range of graphical settings. There's no support for any upscaling tech like DLSS or FSR here, and in a slow-paced game like this, you would think it would work well with it. Early on in the game, it appears as though we can pretty much run ultra settings, and in some maps, such as Arizona, where the map is largely desert and rocks, you can. However, if you move to the Carpathian map, the performance will quickly fall apart on Ultra settings, and therefore, I can't recommend any presets using them.
There is no way of running the game at 60 FPS, even with the lowest settings. It seems like the CPU struggles to reach more than the mid-50s, but fortunately, the advantage 60 FPS gives over 40 FPS in such a slow-paced game is minimal, so I probably wouldn't recommend playing these games at 60 FPS on a handheld anyway.
The graphical settings are effectively split into 2 sections, and both presets use the same settings for the first half, so here are the settings I used for reference. I disabled Anti-Aliasing, FXAA, Motion Blur, and Film Grain. Disabling Motion Blur and Film Grain is a personal preference. I don't believe they affect the frame rate, but I dislike their effects and have them disabled.
In your SteamOS settings, set a 40 FPS/Hz limit and your TDP limit to 12W.
Here, we're using mostly Medium settings. However, we can get away with turning Effects and Texture quality to Ultra, as they barely impact performance, and we also have a fair amount of RAM/VRAM that's unused. We're sacrificing volume fog and light shafts, as they can affect performance at certain times of day and in weather conditions.
Using these settings, we get a fairly consistent 40 FPS. The worst dip I ever saw was in a Carpathian expedition where you enter a swampy area, upon entering the water in the middle of a forest, I saw a dip to 37-38 FPS, however, it was very specific to the area, and it was the only time I saw these dips. You might also experience dips when flying the drone around the map, as it's quite a departure from how the game is usually played. I haven't based my presets around performance when using the drone, just when driving normally.
Battery drain is around 16-18W for most of the time when driving. However, it can reach 20W in very intensive areas, specifically where I saw the frame drop to the high 30s. You can expect around 2 hours of battery from a full charge at these settings. Temperatures are reasonably modest, holding around 70-75C in my experience.
In your SteamOS settings, set a 30 FPS / 60 Hz limit and your TDP limit to 7W.
We're running settings similar to the 40 FPS preset above, mostly medium. The exception is that we are lowering Shadow Quality from Medium to Low. It's by far the most intensive setting in the game, and we save a good 5 FPS by lowering it. We still maintain some shadows, though, as even "Low" doesn't disable them entirely. Many other settings have minimal impact on performance, and we might as well keep them set to higher settings.
The framerate with these settings is a pretty steady 30 FPS. Like the 40 FPS preset, you're likely to see a completely stable 30 FPS in the Arizona environment due to the lack of foliage and often water there. You may see occasional dropped frames in the Carpathians, but in my experience, you can expect 30 FPS almost the entire time.
The battery drain in these settings is around 12-13W, meaning we should expect just under 3 hours of battery life here. Temperatures are a little lower here, meaning your Deck shouldn't get too hot to the touch.
While battery life is always nice to have, given the mission-based layout of Expeditions compared to its predecessors, I feel like battery life is much less important in this game, as missions rarely take more than 30 minutes to complete. You can also quit out of a mission at any point. When you reload your saved game, you will return exactly where you left your vehicle in the mission, meaning you don't need to worry about finishing a mission before your battery expires.
Now for accessibility... well... there isn't any. But I'm not sure there needs to be. There are rebindable controls, and that's about all I could find.
There isn't any requirement in Expeditions to be able to hear anything; all objectives are displayed on-screen, and any "lore" or mission updates are conveyed via a written radio message displayed at the side of your screen. All info is conveyed via symbols, so those with colorblindness shouldn't struggle here.
Is Expeditions a good game? Yes, I would be hard-pressed to say the game is "bad" in any particular way. The driving physics is as good as ever, the vehicles are varied and suitable for different terrains and mission types, and the visuals hold up, with the Steam Deck running the game well, both in terms of performance and in terms of controls.
Whether or not long-time fans of the MudRunner series will enjoy the game is a different matter. Gone is the open world, replaced by smaller, mission-based adventures. You won't be handling cranes, lifting logs, or other materials onto the back of trucks; they're all handled via menus now. It gives "Spin-Off" vibes rather than a mainline series entry.
If you were in it to navigate difficult terrain and watch your vehicle react to different stressful situations, Expeditions still has that for you. Still, if you wanted to haul cargo and spend 10 minutes trying to get yourself up that muddy hill, that isn't the aim here.
I am also slightly worried about when co-op hits Expeditions. In SnowRunner, players could easily separate and do their own thing. With several missions present on each map, each player could focus on their mission and help each other out when required. There is only ever 1 mission at a time, and right now, they're all designed for 1 player. Having 4 players would be a waste. I can only hope that when the co-op update does hit, a set of separate missions is available specifically designed for multiplayer.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
