Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is A Mixed Bag on Steam Deck - First Look

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was provided to us for review. Thank you!

Along with many people, I have been extremely excited for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Not only does the story hit me right in the feels, but it also has fantastic interactive turn-based combat that feels great to play around with. I am loving my time with it so far, the story, gameplay, and music all hit wonderfully, but with its Unsupported rating, I wanted to see just how well it can play on the Steam Deck. From what I have played, I definitely have some thoughts, both good and bad.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 can also be purchased on Fanatical for $39.99 if you want to save $10!

This article is going to be a preview of my experience with the game so far on the Steam Deck. The game itself is amazing so far, but I want to focus more on the performance and my thoughts in the first hour or so. Keep in mind that the performance could change for the better or worse in later portions of the game.

I also want to remind everyone that the game wasn't designed to be compatible with the Steam Deck yet. When I talked to the team at GDC, they mentioned that the game will not be the best on the Deck yet, but they are working on it post-launch. Still, I wanted to take a look and give a realistic look at playing Expedition 33 on the go.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Steam Deck Performance So Far

The first thing I want to mention is actually playing Expedition 33 without any changes. The team seems to have made some effort to make it Steam Deck compatible, and if you just boot the game, you will see what I mean. There are no graphical settings to change other than upscaler, and the target framerate is 45 FPS, which it hits. However, we have some major graphical downgrades to lighting, view distance, and model details. In some ways, it looks like a completely different game, but it can hit 45 FPS pretty stably throughout.

However, we can use the SteamDeck=0 %command% launch option to access the version of the game that doesn't have these forced modifications, and it looks stunning. Even with low quality settings and XeSS upscaling at balanced, it looks leagues better than the default. But it hits performance hard. It will be near impossible to play above 30 FPS throughout the entire game, and the open sections could bring framerate down to 24-25 FPS.

So now we are left with two options. We can play at the default settings for a great framerate, but ugly visuals, or with the launch option and beautiful visuals, but terrible framerate. In all honesty, I find it hard to recommend either one. The lack of shadows and poor lighting in the default made it hard to look at the game, and some areas and character models can look extremely ugly, while the worrisome framerate with the launch option isn't wonderful.

If I were forced to choose a way I prefer playing, I would actually recommend the default settings with some improved upscaling, and it all comes down to framerate. The reason the 45 FPS lock is so important here is because of how the combat feels. The Quick-Time Events (QTEs) that make your attacks more powerful and dodging or parrying are significantly harder to manage at 30 FPS. I died multiple times this way because I just couldn't hit the right mark or parry at the exact time necessary. I was able to get through some battles, but it was not easy.

Battles do look significantly better at the default way to play, and it comes with some performance drops, but it's better than playing at 30 FPS.

If you do decide to play Expedition 33 with the launch option, I recommend setting the quality preset to "High" and then turning down all of the individual graphical settings to "Low." This brings up the view distance and so there's less pop-in models and foliage. If you are already sacrificing framerate for visuals, this helps a lot.

And all of this was tested without any TDP limits or framerate limits. You are going to be pushing the Deck a lot when playing this game if you are trying to do so now.

Both ways to play have major compromises, and I can see why the game got its Unsupported rating. Again, the team is working on compatibility post-launch, so it should get better, but it's hard to recommend right now in this state. It's definitely playable, but the cost is pretty steep, and it hurts the experience overall. This is a game really worth playing, and I absolutely adore it, but to get an optimal experience, it may be best to play on Desktop or wait.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is on sale for $44.99 until May 1st, but you can get it for $39.99 over on Fanatical right now if you want to save more money.

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