REANIMAL's Next Fest Demo Gives Hope For Steam Deck Performance

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Little Nightmares has always been one of my favorite horror games, thanks to its incredible and surreal atmosphere that kept me on the edge of my seat. While I thoroughly enjoyed Little Nightmares 3, I was just as excited to see that the original developers of the series, Tarsier Studios, announced their own IP that reeks of a similar style. REANIMAL completely stunned me when I first saw the trailer, showing off this creepy world and our little guys running around in it. I was further captivated by the gorgeous world when I saw it in person at Gamescom last year.

Now, I had the chance to try it for myself. REANIMAL is getting a demo for the upcoming Steam Next Fest, and I had the pleasure of being able to check it out early. There are some key differences that were more apparent to me, especially right after playing through Little Nightmares 3, but I still got the same vibe that I had fallen in love with from their previous games. The world feels more realistic than Little Nightmares, but still just as surreal, and it's wonderful. I like that they still found a way to keep that gloomy atmosphere, even with the less surreal and more open environments.

I am really enjoying it so far, and it has made me extremely excited for the release. This is going to be an easy must-buy for me. On top of that, this demo also gave me a chance to take a look at how it will perform on the Steam Deck, giving some idea of what the full release's performance could be like. Overall, I would say it's going to be playable, but there are some key issues I have found so far.

REANIMAL's Next Fest Demo on Steam Deck

For the most part, I would say REANIMAL should be very playable on the Steam Deck. I found that the Medium quality preset was the best compromise of visuals and framerate, with High being too demanding and Low looking way too sharp. Medium kept the game above 30 FPS, which felt pretty solid for the most part, and looked beautiful. The differences between Low and Medium are not as apparent in screenshots, but the extra sharpness does make an impact when running around.

Still, at the Medium settings, I didn't find any area on land that really hurt performance. It was always above 30 FPS, with some areas going upwards to 40 or 45. Even when being chased by grotesque, slithering people, the framerate stuck in a playable area. We even have some leg room to increase some settings, like Textures, which is awesome to see.

However, the biggest issue is going to be sailing in the open water. For whatever reason, sailing along the sea was tough for the Steam Deck. Even on the lowest settings, we could just barely inch out to 40 FPS, and there were still some drops. As soon as we got to the rock face and forest, the framerate dropped below 30. I'm not sure exactly why this is so tough on the system, especially as more complex areas with more going on are running pretty well. It's possible it's rendering a large area, which could be very draining on resources.

On the water at Low Settings Preset.

The only other problem I can find is the shadows. While the world itself looks gorgeous, some of the shadows can look very grainy. Even on the high-quality settings, it looks just a little too grainy, and it's distracting. High and Ultra settings look better, but Low and Medium have very clear, grainy shadows. It just feels a little out of place.

There also seems to be some slight slowdown and stutters when loading into new places, but this is usually due to shader cache issues. The full game will have the shared shader cache, which should eliminate any stutters that come from it.

REANIMAL’s demo only made me more excited for the eventual release, and it’s apparent how much Tarsier Studios has put into it. The gorgeous atmosphere that they cultivated in Little Nightmares 1 and 2 feels realized again here, and I love the more realistic setting. As for performance on the Steam Deck, it’s definitely playable when on land and able to walk around freely, but sailing around in the open sea is going to be a tough one. It does show some promise, though, and with some optimizations, it should be significantly easier to run on the Deck. Either way, I do believe this is going to be a solid game to play on the Deck.

REANIMAL can be wishlisted ahead of its release, and the Next Fest demo will be available on October 13th.

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