Every once in a while, you come across a piece of media that resonates with you for years on end. The emotional impact, countless hours spent absorbing the music, characters, atmosphere; it all comes together to create something uniquely mesmerizing. The kind of experience that makes you silently realize you're deep into one of your favorite games of all time.
Clair Obscur is the very first game from indie studio Sandfall Interactive, and before release, almost nobody expected it to become such a massive hit and dominate award shows the way it has. This small team of 33 passionate French developers delivered something gigantic, and its impact will likely leave a mark on the overall gaming industry for years to come.
Set in a breathtaking dark fantasy world inspired by the Belle Époque golden age in France, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tells the story of a civilization slowly approaching extinction. Every year, a mysterious being known as the Paintress awakens and paints a number upon a massive monolith. Anyone matching that age instantly vanishes without a trace. With the number decreasing year after year, humanity sends an expedition into the unknown each time, hoping to find the Paintress and finally end the cycle. Expedition 33 follows the 67th expedition, a group of people marching toward an almost impossible mission, knowing that their own remaining time is running out. What follows is an emotional and deeply personal journey filled with loss, mystery, and the constant fear of inevitable death.
The story and writing are etched with a level of screenplay and dialogue quality that competes with film classics. Without diving into spoilers, the narrative constantly evolves through multiple emotional and philosophical layers. Much of the experience revolves around mystery, slowly connecting fragmented conversations, hidden meanings, and puzzling dialogue pieces together. That constant feeling of trying to understand the truth behind everything is what made the story so addictive.
Clair Obscur distinguishes itself from its peers through its characters. From major cast members to side characters you may only speak to once, nearly everyone feels carefully written and memorable. One of the smartest decisions in the script is that no character feels completely devious or maligned. The game masterfully captures the grey areas of humanity, constantly pushing the player to empathize with actions that may be wrong, desperate, or forced by circumstances.
Story and writing are personally the most important aspects of a video game for me. With most games, I usually find myself nitpicking certain flaws or decisions I didn’t fully like. But in Expedition 33’s case, I genuinely struggle to think of anything I would change. The writing quality throughout the experience is nothing short of masterful. It made me cry, laugh, reflect, and constantly kept me emotionally invested from beginning to end. It was a complete rollercoaster of emotions.
When it comes to gameplay, my favorite way of describing Expedition 33 is “the best of both worlds.” The combat system feels like a near-perfect blend of classic turn-based Final Fantasy combat and the reaction-based defensive mechanics of Souls-like games such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While adding active reaction mechanics into turn-based games is not an entirely new concept, Expedition 33 is in a class of its own.
At first glance, combat starts like a traditional turn-based RPG. You build a party with different characters, unique strengths, playstyles, and skill combinations, carefully strategizing your way through encounters. However, once enemies begin attacking, the game transforms into something far more interactive. You can dodge, parry, or jump over attacks entirely through player reaction and timing.
Parrying, in particular, becomes one of the most satisfying mechanics in the game. It is extremely difficult to master, but also incredibly rewarding. Every successful parry grants AP, allowing you to build resources even while defending. Perfectly parrying entire enemy combos triggers devastating counterattacks that feel impactful every time. After hundreds of hours of gameplay, landing a full counter never stops being satisfying.
There are a total of six playable characters in the game, and each of them feels both unique and surprisingly deep mechanically. Each character introduces their own gameplay system and combat identity. For example, Lune functions as a mage who utilizes elemental “Stains” to create different effects and empower specific abilities, while Sciel fights using a card-based system that grants buffs, applies debuffs, and shifts her between different combat stances and modes.
The game also includes a character inspired by the classic “Blue Mage” archetype from Final Fantasy, allowing you to collect enemy abilities and use their own attacks against them. The amount of combat variety and combo potential across the cast is nuanced and contributes to the game's overall atmosphere.
On top of the turn-based combat, the game features a Free Aim system that feels like a small third-person shooter mechanic. You can manually target enemy weak points, interrupt attacks, or trigger special interactions during battle. What makes it even more impressive is how deeply this mechanic can be integrated into character builds. You can fully specialize certain characters around Free Aim and essentially turn them into machine gun-style damage weapons that seem to draw inspiration from first-person shooters. The sheer amount of build variety gives the combat system an unforeseen level of replayability and experimentation.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 uses a unique world structure that blends open exploration with more focused level design. While there is a large overworld where you can freely travel, fight optional bosses, discover loot, and unlock side activities, the main gameplay loop revolves around the game’s individual locations.
These locations function almost like large dungeon-style areas with semi-open layouts. They are filled with enemies, platforming sections, hidden paths, optional encounters, shortcuts, puzzles, and combat challenges, all of which constantly reward exploration. Each area is mechanically distinct, introducing new enemy combinations, traversal ideas, and gameplay scenarios rather than repeating the same structure over and over.
By avoiding the typical “open world checklist” design, the game becomes more enjoyable. Exploration feels focused and gameplay-driven rather than bloated, keeping a strong pace throughout the entire experience.
At first glance, character progression looks deceptively simple. You level up your characters, improve stats, unlock new skills, and equip stronger gear, much like you would in a traditional RPG. However, the game's real depth comes from its Picto and Lumina systems.
Pictos are special equipment pieces that not only provide stats but also unique passive abilities that can drastically change your playstyle. The clever part is that after winning four battles with a Picto equipped, its passive ability is permanently unlocked as a “Lumina.” Once unlocked, you can equip that passive separately without needing to keep the original Picto on your character, essentially letting you stack and combine countless different effects together.
Throughout the game, you constantly collect Lumina points that expand your Lumina capacity, allowing for increasingly powerful and creative builds. The feeling of gradually becoming stronger is satisfying, especially because the system constantly rewards experimentation.
There are well over a hundred different Pictos for Luminas in the game, creating an enormous amount of specialized build variety. Even after reaching the level cap for your characters, weapons, and equipment, you can continue farming Lumina points to further improve your builds. This progression system adds a huge amount of replayability, especially for New Game Plus runs where you can experiment with entirely different playstyles and absurdly powerful combinations.
At first glance, the graphical quality in Expedition 33 may seem like a fairly standard Unreal Engine 5 presentation with solid but familiar texture work. What elevates the visuals is the incredible attention to atmosphere, particle effects, lighting, and artistic direction. Nearly every area in the game feels as if it were pulled from a painting, constantly presenting the player with unique visual themes and memorable scenery.
The game makes extremely smart use of cinematic techniques such as depth of field, lighting contrast, fog, and environmental effects to enhance the overall presentation. Rather than forcing realism through an enormous budget, Expedition 33 uses its artistic strengths intelligently, often masking technical limitations in ways that feel almost magical. The result is a game that looks breathtaking despite being developed by a relatively small team.
The cinematic presentation quality is so good that some scenes feel closer to watching a professionally edited, scripted movie than to playing a video game developed by a small team in France. And thanks to the talented motion capture performers and the game’s strong directorial vision, the cinematics become far more emotionally immersive than most RPGs. The facial animations, body language, camera work, and performances all come together brilliantly, making the visual presentation during story moments pull you deeper into the experience and make even simple conversations feel impactful.
The only noticeable technical issue I found was with the character models. Both important story characters and random NPCs can sometimes look a little too similar facially, making it fairly obvious that many of them share very similar base models underneath their designs.
While this is ultimately a minor complaint, it can occasionally diminish immersion and create unintended confusion during certain scenes. At times, I found myself wondering whether a character was intentionally connected to another, related somehow, or part of a future reveal, simply because some faces looked so similar. It’s one of the few areas where the game’s smaller budget becomes slightly more noticeable.
Also, the aggressive use of depth of field causes some blurriness issues. On hair, it causes an effect that looks a little bit underwhelming. But other than that, the game looks absolutely gorgeous.
Music... music... music... I seriously don’t even know what to say here. I feel unqualified trying to review Lorien Testard’s work because the soundtrack is simply awe-inducing. With 154 different tracks, this is easily one of the most robust soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a video game.
The differentiation is insane. Some tracks are emotional and melancholic, some are peaceful and atmospheric, while others suddenly turn into intense boss themes that make fights feel ten times more impactful.
What makes it even more special is how memorable everything is. Hours after playing, I still had multiple tracks randomly stuck in my head. The music carries so many emotional scenes and elevates the entire experience constantly. There were moments where I just stopped moving for a minute and listened to the sounds coming through my speakers.
Sound design and voice acting, as presented, are top-tier. The impact and feedback during combat feel incredible, especially when it comes to parries and powerful skills. Every hit, counter, explosion, and attack has this heavy, satisfying feeling to it that makes combat even more addictive.
Voice acting is fantastic across the entire cast as well, with emotional scenes feeling natural and believable instead of overly dramatic or forced. Honestly, the entire sound package, from music to effects to performances, is a work of art.
I want to start with a small disclaimer here. If you simply download the game and play it using the default “Verified” settings, you are honestly going to have a pretty terrible experience. Out of the box, the game uses heavily restricted settings that look extremely blurry, suffer from unstable performance, and introduce noticeable input delay due to the uncapped fluctuating frame rate.
By default, the game does not properly allow you to lock the frame rate, meaning performance constantly jumps around between 30 and 50 FPS, depending on the area. In most games, this would already be annoying, but in a reaction and parry-heavy game like Expedition 33, inconsistent frame pacing actively hurts gameplay.
Thankfully, there is an easy workaround. By adding:
SteamDeck=0 %command%
into the Steam launch options, you can bypass the game’s restricted Steam Deck preset and gain full access to the graphics settings menu, including proper frame rate limiting options. This alone massively improves the experience and immediately makes combat feel far more responsive.
The second thing I highly recommend doing is injecting an FSR 4 file. Thankfully, this process is extremely simple and dramatically improves image quality without heavily impacting performance. There are multiple ways of doing it, but the easiest method is downloading the amd_fidelityfx_upscaler_dx12.dll file directly from AMD’s official files and replace the existing one through Desktop Mode.
Once both of these tweaks are applied, the visual difference is shocking. The game transforms from a blurry, unstable mess into one of the sharpest and most visually impressive games available on Steam Deck. Here’s a comparison between the default FSR 3.1 implementation and FSR 4 running on the Performance preset.
Once properly configured, the game manages to hold a surprisingly stable and responsive 30 FPS lock on Steam Deck for the vast majority of the experience. Around 99% of gameplay feels smooth and consistent, which is extremely important for a reaction-heavy combat system like this one.
There are a few exceptions. Some larger open-world sections and certain chaotic 3v3 encounters can occasionally dip into the 24-27 FPS range, but these drops are relatively minor and rarely occur during actual gameplay. Overall, the experience still feels very comfortable and responsive on the Deck.
There is little visual sacrifice made while using lower settings. Even on desktop hardware, the difference between the lowest and highest presets is surprisingly subtle in many areas. Thanks to the game’s creative use of art direction and lighting, Expedition 33 still looks absolutely gorgeous on Steam Deck despite running on the lowest available settings.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the rare games that reminds me why I fell in love with video games in the first place. Between its masterfully written story, unforgettable characters, addictive combat system, incredible soundtrack, and beautiful artistic vision, this is an experience that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
On Steam Deck, the experience is also far better than the default settings initially suggest. While the out-of-the-box “Verified” profile is disappointing, a few simple tweaks transform the game into a surprisingly stable and visually stunning handheld experience.
It feels surreal that this is the very first game from Sandfall Interactive. If this is what the studio is capable of on their debut title, I cannot wait to see what they create next. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not just one of the best RPGs I’ve played in years. It is probably the best game I've ever played, period.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The First Berserker: Khazan was provided by NEXON for review. Thank you!
I'm not one for souls-like games, so I was a little nervous going into The First Berserker: Khazan, but I have to say, the fluid gameplay and the feeling of satisfaction that the game can bring you is one of the better feelings I've had playing a video game for a while, which is just as well when it has to counter the frustrations of a souls-like game.
The story follows Khazan, a military general falsely accused of being a traitor and, therefore, imprisoned and exiled. While being transported, he is killed and "resurrected" by a phantom who possesses his body, granting him supernatural powers. You now embark on a quest for revenge against those who betrayed you. The story is decent, and the voice acting, while minimal, also holds up.
However, the main focus of any Souls-like game is the combat, and The First Berserker: Khazan follows a pretty similar formula to games such as Dark Souls. You'll encounter your regular enemies as you progress through a mostly linear world with branching pathways. They will mostly pose as an inconvenience more than anything else, trying to whittle down your health before you reach the next rest point.
Your main concern is the boss battles you'll encounter. As you'd expect in a Souls-like, frequent boss battles occur during the game at key moments in the plot. These battles are far more exciting and put your skills to the test. When your opponent is making combo moves, teleporting around the battlefield, and presenting you with unblockable attacks, you'll have to think on your feet and learn both your enemy's moves and your own weapons.
Your choice of weapon is really important in The First Berserker: Khazan, and it's a good idea to keep yourself familiar with how each one works, as different boss battles can favor one over the other. Spears grant you far greater melee range if you want to keep your distance from your opponent but don't deal huge amounts of damage. Greatswords are slow but can deal a lot of damage and quickly weaken your foe, and Dual Wield is ideal for close combat but can leave you more vulnerable.
Ultimately, the combat feels smooth and fluid; it's satisfying to block or dodge incoming attacks and swiftly punish the enemy, and it's even more satisfying to finally beat that boss after countless attempts. If you can time it correctly, you can also parry attacks, which hurts the boss slightly without draining your stamina. The game skips previously seen cutscenes for bosses, and the save points are well-placed, so if you lose a battle, it's quick to get back into the action.
Your weapon stats are also slightly affected by the abilities you upgrade to. With abilities spread across Vitality, Endurance, Strength, Willpower, and Proficiency, each affects skill with certain types of weapons, as well as changing your other stats such as health, stamina, and combat capabilities. Armor sets can be worn to give buffs to your stats, and there are also skill trees tied to each weapon type, which can increase your effectiveness and grant new combos for you to use in battle. All in all, it creates a pretty deep gear and leveling system that gives us a chance to cater to our playstyle.
The combat feels a bit faster, similar to a hack and slash, but still has the Souls-like formula baked in. Attacks are faster or slower depending on the weapon type you have, and with a combination of abilities to unlock and ranged attacks, Khazan offers a great amount of variety. I especially enjoyed parrying bosses, hearing that satisfying cling of metal, and seeing the boss' health and stun bar go down to make a big attack and get closer to beating them. The bosses all felt unique in mechanics and style, and with the inclusion of gear, the skill tree, and the well-known Souls-like leveling system of gathering currency to increase stats one by one, I found Khazan a hard game to put down.
With regards to the presentation, as I said before, the voice acting in the game is pretty well done. The sound effects in general are also up to scratch, with audio cues allowing you to protect yourself from attacks off-screen, and the sound of getting a perfect block is a serotonin boost. Visually, the game adopts a cel-shaded style, and I think it works well in this somewhat dark world. Plus, it probably helps the game's performance.
I mostly enjoyed my time with The First Berserker: Khazan. It was quite a challenge for me, someone who isn't used to Souls-like games. If you do die a few times in the same area, the game recommends you switch to an "Easy" mode, which, while easier, is still pretty tough and will present a challenge to most players.
My only criticism is that the "lock-on" only locks on to enemies in front of you, so if you quickly want to change to a target behind you, it can cause some issues, which, in a Souls-like, can be deadly. Also, while there is a general premise to the storyline, it feels like the background to the characters is a little shallow and not expanded upon, meaning your knowledge of the world is pretty restricted to what little the game lets you know.
If you are after a solid Action-Adventure Souls-like game with a unique presentation, well-tuned combat with a nice skill system, and backed up by a pretty decent storyline, then The First Berserker: Khazan might be the game for you.
The First Berserker: Khazan works pretty well on the Steam Deck, as you would hope, seeing as it achieved Steam Deck Verified status by Valve before its launch. The game has good controller support and supports the Deck's native 1280x800 resolution.
There is a wide range of graphical settings, but I recommend keeping the settings on the lower side for the sake of performance and battery life. Plus, the game still looks pretty good on low settings, thanks to the somewhat artistic styling.
If you want the game to feel smooth and look decent, these are your settings.
You'll want no TDP Limit set, so make sure to disable the framerate limit and set the refresh rate to 60. This will minimize any input lag, which is essential for games like this.
For in-game graphical settings, selecting the "Low" preset and then dropping the Shadows from "Low" to "None" actually puts us in a really good position for this; it pushes the GPU to its max, but you barely get any drops from 60 FPS, meaning it's a smooth and pleasant experience. The exception to this is some cutscenes, which will drop. One particular cutscene I noticed dropped below 20 FPS.
It may seem you can get away with the Shadows on "Low," but as you progress through the game, you'll encounter battles where the frame rate drops into the mid-50s, so for a stable 60, turn them off.
On the flip side, this does mean that the power draw is on the higher end, often drawing about 19W-22W from the battery. This means your playtime will be down to about 2.5 hours on the Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were also up at around 70C-75C, with audible fan noise.
If you want to preserve some battery life, turn down the in-game frame limit from 60 to 30 and use the same in-game graphics settings as above. This should lower the power draw to around 11W-13W while still maintaining playability. You should see around 4 hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED and around 3 hours on the Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures are also down to about 60-65C on these settings. I also recommend changing the refresh rate back to 90 for smoothness, but keep the disabled framerate limit option on.
The First Berserker: Khazan does have an "Easy" mode, which makes the game's combat a bit easier. There is some aim assist to help with ranged weapons and an option for an Arachnophobia Safe Mode to alter the appearance of spider-like creatures.
The First Berserker: Khazan is an enjoyable title for a specific group of people. The combat is tight and responsive, just what you want for a skill-based game such as a Souls-like. The story is decent, although I would have liked to have a bit more background information about the empire that Khazan served and any actual information on what kind of person Khazan is, but maybe that's for another time. The game's presentation is unique with the cel-shading, but it works well.
To top it all off, The First Berserker: Khazan runs great on the Steam Deck. We can't push the visuals too hard, but we do get a decent-looking game at 60 FPS, and we can lower the frame rate to gain some battery life if we choose.
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.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was provided to us by Koei Tecmo to review. Thank you!
From the developers of Nioh comes a new action RPG that will test your skill and resolve. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a new souls-like game from Team NINJA putting you in the role of an unnamed militant in a dark fantasy world. Taking place during the Han Dynasty in China, you will face off against deadly monsters and soldiers using a multitude of weapons, magic, and divine beasts. Attack, dodge, deflect, and demolish your foes and level up at various resting points while getting new weapons and gear to help you increase your morale rank to become even more powerful. Will you be able to overcome the odds and rise from being a nobody?
I have played a lot of souls-like games recently, but Wo Long has hit all the right spots for me. The fast-paced combat, the setting, the story, everything just clicked. I loved the different weapon types and mixing them with strategic spell casting to maximize the damage I inflict. The enemies are devastating and the game is as tough as many souls-like games are. It might be easier than others as I was able to deflect attacks more than other similar games, though I still died more than not, but I really enjoyed it. But now, we get to take a look at how it plays on the Steam Deck.
Before I go into performance, I want to make note that I was told the game was not considering making the game playable on the Steam Deck during development. This means that there aren't many optimizations included specifically to help the game run on Deck. There could be patches that release later on to make the game more playable, but there has been no confirmation yet.
So to start, I decided to try Wo Long at its out of the box graphics and it is not reasonably playable. The game defaults to its "standard" settings, which I would consider as "Medium" with 100% render scale. This ran the game around 20 - 25 FPS for the majority with some dips below and a couple of big stutters. Going to max settings only made this significantly worse with performance going below 20 and not remotely playable. There are some compromises to be made, but if you're willing to take a hit to visual quality, and put up with some performance issues, Wo Long can be played on Deck.
To start, I had to find the source of what's causing the issues. The RAM usage is under 13gb and the CPU usage is under 70% most of the time, but I noticed that GPU usage is generally around 95% - 97%, meaning that's where the hitches are coming from. To combat this, I started by dialing down the visual quality all the way to the lowest possible, which definitely helped with performance. Combine this with turning resolution scale to 60% and prioritizing FPS over resolution and the game is able to hit 30 FPS.
While these images here look not so great, it looks significantly better on the Steam Deck screen. We will still show them regardless, of course, but it will look better on your device.
While playing with these settings, I did encounter some framerate instability and stutters when running through different places or looking at large-scale areas. I wanted to see if I could reduce resolution and that would help, but since in-game didn't have options below 1280x720, I had to force the resolution through Steam's preference settings for the game. After trying multiple, I settled on 800x500, which turned the game into one that fit the entire screen. This also got rid of the major stutters and a lot of the framerate instability I was seeing before, while sticking below a 19.5W battery drain (make sure the internal and external resolution box is checked).
Even though Wo Long is hitting close to 30 without any forced resolution, the framerate bar is much more erratic. This will present itself as noticeable stutters when moving around.
While forcing the resolution is necessary for the most stable framerate, it comes with an odd price. If you force a resolution down from the native 1280x720, you will not be able to navigate down all the way in menus. This really isn't a huge issue throughout most of the game's menus, but it will prevent you from creating your character. For Wo Long, I would recommend playing the game at 1280x720 to start, creating your character, and then after loading in and you can move around, quit the game and change the resolution to 800x500 on Steam.
If you're curious about other resolutions, well the lower one, 640x400, prevents you from accessing even more of the menu and while the one above, 1024x600, let's you access the entire menu, it also creates a horrifying reflection effect among the ground. This effect is present at 640x400 as well, but not at 800x500.
Have I been able to play the game and generally not feel like my timing or experience was disrupted? For the most part, yes. While the game would be amazing running at 40, Wo Long is a brand new game that has decently high minimum specs. I would consider the performance in this case a pretty massive win. I did still encounter weird issues from time to time though.
The biggest one I have seen so far was actually during the first boss. I fought him...over 50 times (because I am not good at souls-like games) and while 49 of those times felt perfectly fine at 30 with some very minor framerate drops to 28 or 29, which I didn't feel, 1 time stood out. During the second phase of the boss, after I had landed a critical strike, the game went down to an average 15 - 18 FPS. This was super odd since I had never experienced this issue before and, when I died, the framerate went right back up to 30. I never experienced that phenomena again, but I think it should be brought up.
There are also some freezes/stutters during some cutscenes and running around some areas, but these are more minor with the changes I made. The framerate will sometimes go down to 29 while running around and combat can sometimes make it dip to 26 if there are a bunch of enemies on screen, but since I am playing at 30 FPS, it wasn't that impactful.
There are reports of crashing that came from the demo, and while I did experience one crash before I changed my settings, I have not experienced another yet.
Due to how heavy the game is, I decided to try playing with CryoUtilities and the UMA Buffer changed to 4gb to see if these would help. For those who don't know, CryoUtilities is a suite of tools aimed to help games run better on the Steam Deck. It isn't an end-all solution, but it can be a massive help to some games. Unfortunately, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty isn't one of those games.
Due to it being GPU heavy, using the recommended settings for CryoUtilities and changing the UMA Buffer didn't impact performance at all. Playing through the same spot with each gave me near similar results with almost no change. I tested using CU alone, the UMA Buffer alone, and both of them together, but none had an impact on the performance.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is an addicting game and one I personally enjoy more than other souls-like games so far. I would consider it tied as my second favorite with Sekiro, and yes, Elden Ring is at the top. I love the Three Kingdoms setting, the story is interesting, and the fast-paced combat isn't as punishing as others before it. It is still plenty hard, don't get me wrong, but I felt a deep sense of gratification being able to deflect and time my attacks so beautifully. If you have a desktop computer that can run this game, and you enjoy souls-like action RPGs, get this game.
On the Steam Deck, there are a lot of compromises to be made to play this one. That being said, I was able to play it with the same skill as on my desktop PC without my experience being compromised. Yes it is 30 FPS, the visuals are downgraded, and there are some minor stutters and freezes, but these evened out a lot during gameplay. With Steam Deck compatibility not being in Team NINJA's mind during development, I am happy it is playable to an extent. If you are willing to look past these faults and give them a chance to patch, and for the shader cache to come out, Wo Long will be a unique and enjoyable experience on the portable platform.
This review is still characterized as a first look as there is more I need to play of the game and make sure these settings still hold up. So far, it has been, but I will need to keep going before making a full assessment. I also want to give the shader cache a chance to help with performance, which will take a couple days after release. Seeing as how much I am enjoying the game, and the potential of how it is working now, I am staying optimistic. If you're wondering if you can play Wo Long right now on the Steam Deck, I would say yes you can, but there will be sacrifices.
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It's time to re-experience the defining game that started an entire genre! Dark Souls Remastered is a glorious return to Lordan that has been remastered in high definition detail, all designed to run at 60 FPS. Create your character and run around, killing your enemies in deadly combat to gain souls to level up your skills, but be careful, one false move and any enemy can kill you easily. Take on insane bosses and get ready to die over and over in one of the hardest games to play.
Dark Souls Remastered is an older game, but still holds up as one of the pinnacles of the notorious souls-like genre. It is a grueling game where timing of your dodges, parries, and attacks are key to survival against all the enemies in this game, including the grunts. It does feel really surreal being able to play this at such high quality and at 60 FPS on the Deck, and while it is able to hit this pretty effectively, I did notice a couple quirks.
The biggest performance one I noticed is that in most areas of the world, it drains the battery higher than it needs to. With some areas draining up to 19W - 20W, this felt significantly higher than it should be for a remaster for an old game. By setting a TDP of 7, and a GPU Clock Speed Frequency of 1200, the game was able to cap out a battery drain of 13W while keeping a solid framerate line. I did notice some instability in the framerate without any changes either, so the GPU frequency lock helps a lot.
I did try lower framerates to see if I could save battery there and still feel really smooth, but there were slight stutters when using them. 55 FPS can be done, but I would say staying at 60 is going to be the best way to play.
Dark Souls Remastered controls really well already, but there are recommendations to use the "Dark Souls 3 style controls" community configuration, but I didn't feel it was necessary to enjoy the game. If you start the game when connected to the internet and go to sleep mode, it will bring you back to the main menu when you load it back up. I would recommend starting the game with WiFi turned off and then turning it back on when you load into the world to avoid this.
Overall, Dark Souls Remastered holds its own on the Steam Deck! Playing at 60 FPS feels amazing and being able to bring battery drain down to 13W max helps a ton with battery life and temps. There are still more bosses and areas I need to test, but overall, I have found no issues so far in all the areas I did try. But if the game runs through as well as it has so far, it will be another Best on Deck game!
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Ghost Song was provided by Humble Games to review. Thank you!
Ghost Song is a metroidvania with some souls-like gameplay elements all wrapped up in a gorgeous-looking package. As a long-dormant deadsuit that has woken up, you will traverse the depths of the desolate moon of Lorian on an adventure to discover who you are. Along the way, you will encounter cosmic threats and ancient mysteries all while acquiring new abilities to crush those standing before you. Will you be able to handle the truth nesting itself in the darkness and overcome?
Ghost Song is by far one of the most beautiful metroidvania games I have played recently. The artwork and atmosphere is pristine, while the combat mechanics felt fantastic. Unfortunately, this was hampered a bit by the amount of backtracking and lack of enough fast travel points. I liked going through and seeing the serene underground as I ran through, it felt tedious with the amount I had to do. I also felt the save points were a bit sparse, which made itself apparent the more I played and constantly died, losing hours of progress (some of this was me forgetting to save). The movement system felt a little static at times too, but it didn't inhibit my enjoyment. Overall, I felt this was a great game and I was absolutely having a great time playing this, and with some tweaking, this was a wonderful experience on the Steam Deck!
In the beginning, I noticed the game defaulted to a 16:9 aspect ratio of 1280x720, which is fine, but was draining the battery around 14W - 15W, which I felt was a bit high considering Ghost Song is a 2D game. It was able to handle 60 FPS for the most part, but I noticed that in some areas, and when some particle effects were happening, the game would spike and drain way more battery than it should. Luckily, just a couple setting changes actually capped the game at 13W, while also expanding the resolution to cover the entire 16:10 screen.
By going into the preferences of the game and using Steam to force the resolution to 1024x640, Ghost Song had not only covered the entire screen of the Deck, but also saved a significant amount of battery life while keeping 60 FPS. Using a TDP limit of 7, the game stuck at 60 FPS and kept a battery drain of 13W or under. I also used FSR to upscale the game and compared to the native 1280x720, it looks significantly better!
While I could make a battery build that pushes framerate or resolution down further, I feel this hurts the overall experience of the game. Any lower framerate makes the game feel much less smooth and, while it could be brought down to 55 and still feel mostly smooth, it felt something was off when I was playing it. And resolution down further would help battery too, but start to lose too much quality that it doesn't need to. A quality build for Ghost Song would be just bumping up the framerate and unlocking the TDP limit.
From time to time, in certain areas, I did encounter a little stuttering. This really only happened when I was running around areas and not in combat, which I am thankful for, but it still happened enough for me to notice. Since it wasn't during my fights, I didn't feel it really affected my enjoyment of the game since it held strong where it counts! I also didn't find any controller issues or visual bugs, it just fit perfectly in the handheld format.
While a lack of save points and a lot of backtracking with a more static movement system was plaguing the game, the pros outweighed the cons. The vibrant and beautiful visuals, the fantastic atmosphere, and great combat system all worked together really well to create a wonderful experience I am happy to have played. And with these adjustments, Ghost Song plays extremely well on the Steam Deck.
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Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a story-driven adventure game that takes you on a mystical journey to find the sacred Mountain Shrine. Along the way, you will discover the Rot, and with their help, you are tasked to help free the spirits trapped in a mysterious forgotten village. As Kena, use your powers from the spirit realm to untangle this curse and restore the world to its once-majestic state with so many secrets to uncover and hats to collect for your Rot friends.
As you collect more and more Rot, you will unlock powerful new abilities to help use them to not only cleanse the corruption, but fight against your foes. Combined with your own skills, you will engage in fast-paced combat to challenge you to strategize when to use the Rot or not. And with the anniversary update content, you can use New Game+, Spirit Guide Trials, new outfits, charmstones, and more! With so much to offer, the only question that remains is...how does it run on the Steam Deck?
Kena is definitely not a game to run at max settings. Everything uncapped, the game can easily drain up to 25W and temps above 80c with a framerate that sticks below 20 FPS. This is definitely not the way to play, but we can absolutely make it better!
With enough tweaking, Kena can run well, but it does have some compromises to do it. Regardless of the settings I chose, there were 2 things specifically that were apparent. The first was framerate drops. Even on the lowest settings with no TDP limit at 30 FPS locked, the game still stuttered when running into new places. While this generally didn't happen during battles or platforming, it was still pretty apparent in the village.
The next is ghosting, and man is it visible. There is no FSR 2.0 integrated in the game as of this writing, but it does have dynamic resolution scaling. Using this is a necessity to play the game at a stable framerate without draining your battery in an hour and a half. But regardless, the ghosting was still there. I was able to look past it when I was playing, but it was still noticeable enough where I feel most will see it.
While this is zoomed in, you can see the edges around her being blurry which, when moving fast, looks like it causes copies of her following behind her movements. This is ghosting.
With all of this, I created 3 different builds with my preference being the 40 FPS one. I felt that the consequences, which are the slightly bigger drain and feeling the stuttering a bit more, was worth the smoothness of having 40 FPS most of the time.
Otherwise, I did create a battery saver build and quality build as well. The battery saver tends to add on an extra hour or so, but it is locked to 30 FPS. The quality build is also locked to 30, but has much higher settings and doesn't use dynamic resolution scaling so you get very crisp visuals. While I would have loved to use this over dynamic resolution, it could not run without battery spikes ranging around 20W - 22W.
Other than the ghosting being an issue under all settings, I haven't actually had any issues with the game itself. Ember Lab, the developer behind Kena, made a couple of design choices that I wasn't really a fan of. They touted having Steam Deck verified/support, but attempted to push DLSS as the upscaling method they used. Steam Decks can't use DLSS. FSR 2.1 would have helped the game tremendously, and while it could still come in the future, it isn't here yet.
They also don't have DLSS as an option when playing off the Deck, so replacing the DLSS files with FSR 2.1 isn't an option here either. I confirmed it is in the game by running it off of my Nvidia desktop computer and DLSS did show up. I am hoping that, in time, it will be added which could alleviate a lot of the issues plaguing the game.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a pretty fun game. I enjoyed the combat and the visuals popped with color, especially when using the vibrantCrankshaft plugin. While the stuttering and ghosting can be a bit of a boon on Deck, it was still very playable and I could easily see myself playing this game solely on the device. Hopefully, FSR 2.1 will be added in the future, which will alleviate most, if not all, of my concerns!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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In 2019, FromSoftware was on a roll. With Dark Souls and Bloodborne, these guys were on top of the world. With Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, they somehow elevated themselves to a higher plane. If the gameplay of Dark Souls was faster and plastered over with a gorgeous Japanese setting and this is the baby you get. Sekiro is a masterpiece of a game that features addicting gameplay, unique mechanics, and an interesting story. But now, we should dive right into the performance on the Steam Deck.
Sekiro at max settings is not playable, but it is impressive. With everything maxed out, the game can run around 35-46 FPS with temps around 80c. For a game like this, I would say that's pretty good, but battery is around 24W just standing around, and we can't have that!
Through my time playing, I noticed that loading in areas is what causes the most fluctuations in framerate. This is noticeable at every setting I chose, except for when the framerate was set to 30 FPS. While I did test 30, and for battery saving and stability it is a lot better, the smoothness of 40 FPS was a night and day difference and I personally preferred the little spikes when running and grappling into new areas.
I tested out lower resolutions with FSR, but because of the sharpening, I felt it was better in the end to just stick at native resolution without upscaling. It does help a little with performance, but the visuals became a bit too sharpened and I personally wasn't a fan. The game also states it supports 1280x800 resolution, but it is stuck to 1280x720 when actually playing.
It is a little harder to tell, but there is more sharpness when using FSR that doesn't fit in as well with this game. It is playable and can save some battery, but the visuals at native is better looking.
With a mix of settings, we were able to get a decently stable 40 FPS (when not loading into new places) with around 3 hours of battery. The game still looks wonderful and feels fantastic to play on. We did also notice there was no Vsync option in the graphics, but that is because it is automatically enabled.
Zooming into action!
Now if you want to curb all those possible stutters, as well as save some battery, the 30 FPS build is the way to go. The game does auto enable Vsync, so to do this without any input lag, you need to put this command in the launch options of the game:
MANGOHUD_CONFIG=fps_limit=30,no_display mangohud %command%On top of that, the game is very playable and stable with high quality settings and around 11W - 14W battery drain for around 3.5 - 4 hours of gameplay! For what it is, it is pretty amazing.
I tried to get these as close as possible, but it was hard due to needing to leave the game and change launch configuration. But there is definitely better shadowing in the distance in the 30 FPS build with better battery life.
There weren't many issues I found while playing Sekiro, though I did see 1 or 2 oddities. The first being the resolution issue where it says 1280x800 but it is only playing at 1280x720. The other is that the default control scheme for the game has gyro controls mapped in. I am not exactly sure why though. This can easily be fixed by turning Gyro Behavior in the controller settings to "None". This really isn't a game that needs gyro controls.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an incredible game and playing it on Steam Deck feels near perfect. The game runs so well when it is configured and feels natural on the gamepad. And thanks to the automatic vsync, we can make sure the input lag is non-existent for both the builds we provide!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Nioh 2 is a critically acclaimed sequel to the game of the same name. Just like its predecessor, you will see yourself in a souls-like action RPG with elements of Diablo-like loot and Ninja Gaiden sprinkled in, though some could say this is much more Ninja Gaiden over Souls. Utilize new powerful Yokai forms to defeat your biggest foes across a wonderful story set during the Sengoku period. And with new abilities your enemies have, like creating Dark Realms, there is a lot more at stake in every fight.
Compared to its predecessor, Nioh 2 runs SO much better. I was able to hit 60 FPS 95% of the time if battery was not an issue on default settings. I did find some changes to be more effective on battery without ruining the game experience.
Setting the framerate to 55, which keeps the game looking smooth, allowed me to set a TDP limit of 9 to keep battery around 3 - 3.5 hours with a stable framerate. This all with most of the quality settings set to max, apart from shadow quality which was set to low. I couldn't see any big difference with Shadows on High vs Low. I also left Rendering Resolution at 50%. Increasing it did make the game look a little more sharp, but I felt the game looked amazing at default and was able to prioritize the framerate and battery savings. In our full review later on, I will have a 100% build, but for now, this felt like the best way to play.
Otherwise, unlike its predecessor, this game runs SO well it feels like it was developed by a completely different team. If you don't care about battery, this game can run at 60 FPS, though it still does drop at certain moments. 55 FPS mitigated that and allowed a much lower battery life and, honestly, this feels like the best way to play Nioh 2 by far. The text is slightly small, but not enough to hurt my eyes (You can slightly enlarge the text in settings), and does have cloud save support!
As you can see in the MangoHUD in the top left, the game draws way too much power when left unchecked. Luckily, with the recommended settings, it is a massive change for the better with more stability and significantly improved battery and temps.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Nioh: Complete Edition is a souls-like game set in Japan where a lone traveler must fight his way through vicious and supernatural warriors to find what he seeks. Though, unlike other souls games, this one has a much heavier emphasis on randomized gear and grinding. Think Diablo meets Dark Souls and slap in a Japanese setting. And with 3 full expansions piled into this edition, Nioh is a difficult and grindy game that, in the end, feels like a massive accomplishment once beaten.
Nioh's performance on Steam Deck, however, is a bit of a mixed bag. I have read and seen many horror stories of how this game runs on Deck and, for the most part, I was able to figure it all out. Once figured out though, and the game is working, it runs incredibly well. The game sticks around a pretty stable 40 FPS, looks great, and while there are some random framerate spikes, they are largely not noticeable. But there are 2 main issues plaguing the game.
Let's start with the smaller one. When playing around with the settings, I realized that, for whatever reason, having shadow quality at low actually makes the game perform significantly worse in shadow heavy areas as opposed to the high setting. The game actually runs quite well with shadows at high, but I found more stability having them off and, on a portable screen, I personally liked it a bit lighter. As long as shadows aren't on low!
The biggest issue was the controls. All the controls worked fine for me except the quick attack button...which is a big one. After initial testing, I elected to make my own entire controller layout, but about 4 hours into on and off working on it, I realized I only needed to change 1 input and that fixed it. I have uploaded the layout with the name "SDHQ Steam Deck Nioh Layout", though there is literally only 1 button change (the X input is now emulating the letter J). Switching to the keyboard input for the button did fix it, though when I had restarted the game, the button deactivated again. I fixed this by changing the keyboard+mouse input to keyboard only and the quick attack button was still working even after I relaunched the game multiple times.
It is also worth noting Nioh uses a 3rd party launcher. This is ridiculously annoying, but thankfully, Nioh provides an option away from it. Just launch "Without Settings" and it will boot right into the game without going through the launcher (you can change settings in-game). There are also reports of video playback being broken, but with proton GE 7-33, I was able to watch the videos that didn't work with Proton 7.0-4. I did also notice some slowdown when coming out of sleep mode, but this recovers quick without worry. Overall, once you get it working, it runs like a charm and feels fantastic to play.
As you can see, low shadows really hits the system hard while high shadows are significantly less taxing...for whatever reason. They are still slightly less table, but way more playable.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Steelrising is a souls-like action RPG taking place in the gorgeous setting of Paris, 1789, during the French Revolution. As Aegie, a mechanical masterpiece, you are tasked with taking up against the King and his army of robots. With an assortment of weapons and abilities, you define your own fighting style while discovering secrets scattered throughout each detailed map. It is up to you to save history now.
I will start off by saying the Steam community reviews for Steelrising are completely correct, this game is poorly optimized. It does have upscalers enabled there, but even still, it was really hard to get a solid stable framerate from this game, even at the lowest quality shooting for 30 FPS.
At max settings, the game got around 10 FPS with 24W drain, which isn't good at all, but with some tweaking, I was able to settle it down to a decently stable 40 FPS with 17W drain max. Regardless of the settings I chose, there was still some stuttering, so I elected to keep the 40 FPS due to feeling so much smoother. Overall, I would be wary of the game. If you enjoy souls-like, go for it. The game is definitely playable, but if you play on the Steam Deck, be prepared for some framerate drops.
While the max settings look significantly better, there is no way the game is playable with the framerate it is getting.
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 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!
