Infinity Nikki is Graced with a Steam Release, Here's How it Performs on the Deck

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Infinity Nikki has been something of a hit since it launched as a free-to-play title across multiple platforms, including the Epic Games Store, last year. Now the time has come for the game to release onto Steam, and with it, better compatibility for the Steam Deck, so let's take a look and see how this game plays, and how it is on the Deck itself.

Infinity Nikki - Gameplay Impressions

Glossing over the fact that I'm a guy in my 30s playing a game that is essentially the most in-depth dress-up simulator of our time, Infinity Nikki is actually a pretty fun experience. Yes, there are a lot of outfits and costumes that you can craft using the in-game materials, and the UI is quite overwhelming at first, but the game feels solid and polished.

Movement is free and easy, and the visuals are definitely the highlight of this game, if not the environments, then for certain the various dresses and outfits that Nikki can wear, all complete with flowing physics, which makes running around hopping over fences at least 5x more enjoyable when your dress and hair is flowing behind you.

While the game has a big emphasis on the outfits you can wear, they serve purposes beyond just aesthetics here. Different outfits are required to further the story, and give Nikki abilities to interact with the world and allow her to explore more areas.

The music of the game just adds to the relaxing nature of it all, with peaceful piano music. The game brings in some nice orchestral music, complete with singing, in crucial cutscenes too, which are pretty good quality.

The game is jam-packed full of quests and little things to do, and it makes the whole world feel alive and charming. As you walk through the villages, you'll overhear conversations which will start quests, making the game feel very natural, rather than going to a noticeboard and accepting all your quests like in many other RPGs.

What would seal the deal for me, would be to have more customizibility over Nikki's own appearance, rather than just her clothing, allowing players to truly create their own character in this wonderful world, but I understand why Nikki is kept as she is for story purposes.

If you're after a relaxing game that's got charm, a pretty world, and plenty of content, then Infinity Nikki should definitely be looked at. It is free, after all!

Infinity Nikki - Steam Deck Performance Tested

Infinity Nikki does have controller support, but the game requires a login and account linking upon first boot, and the controls do not work here, meaning I had to use the touchscreen and manually invoke the on-screen keyboard to proceed with registering an account.

Once you finally get to the main menu, likely after a reboot due to a game update, you can go into the game options, go to "Controls" and switch to Gamepad controls, then you can use the Steam Deck controller to control menus and the game itself.

As for performance, the opening sequences of the game run terribly on the Steam Deck, consistently around 20 FPS, with dips closer to 10 FPS at points, it really taxes the GPU. Fortunately, once you're past these short gameplay sequences and make it into the game proper, the performance picks up a lot, and you can expect to hold 30 FPS with some stuttering, in this part of the game, the CPU is what gets hit the hardest.

Because we have limited power available to the GPU, we still have to keep settings on the lower side, but I found that I could get away with upping a couple of settings to clear up the image, while maintaining 30 FPS. Here are the settings that I used:

Obviously Infinity Nikki is a big game, and these are just initial impressions, so it's possible you might need to adjust these settings later down the line, but at least for the initial stages of the game, it seems to work well, there are some stutters, and a couple of times it dropped to 28 FPS or so, but still fully playable.

As a side note, my Steam Deck did crash/shut down when I put the device into standby when playing the game, so you may have similar issues. As the game is technically an online game, you probably won't want to use the standby function either.

Final Thoughts

Infinity Nikki is a charming game, and definitely one I plan to continue playing after this preview for whenever I get a spare moment and just want to unwind.

Steam Deck performance isn't great, you have to run with pretty low settings to make the game playable, but the game still retains its look and feel, and it is playable, even if you have to make visual sacrifices.

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