South of Midnight Deserves Its Verified Badge - First Impressions

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Ever since seeing it for the first time, I have been entranced by South of Midnight. It has a really unique art style, coupled with an intriguing story that deals with the mythology of the Deep South. I love the designs of the characters, and the combat looks solid. With it releasing into access for Premium Edition purchasers today, I decided to check it out on the Steam Deck, and I am impressed! So, here are my thoughts on the game so far on Deck.

Before I go into it, please note that this is a first impression. I have not played the full game yet, and this article is meant to give some impressions on whether I think it is worth purchasing to play on the Deck so far.

South of Midnight's Steam Deck Performance So Far

South of Midnight is running wonderfully on the Steam Deck, and I am so glad it does. I was a little worried due to recent Xbox games not being the most optimized for the Deck or having troubles at launch, but it looks like this will be a different story altogether.

From my experience so far, the game has fluctuated between 33 FPS - 90 FPS depending on the area, and I would say it averaged around 40-45 FPS. In closed off areas like caves and buildings, I was able to hit 90 FPS with 22W battery drain, but during the opening hurricane scene and fights, it would drop to 32 FPS at the lowest. Cutscenes are also capped at 30 FPS. There could be heavier areas later on, so my gut is telling me 30 FPS is going to be the way to go.

This is all on the game's default settings, which are at Medium across the board with TAAU upscaling. There is no FSR or XeSS options here, so we only have TAAU to work with. Luckily, the game still looks incredible at these settings, and I found very little reason to complain. However, it's very possible we may need to change some of these settings to low for a more stable experience later on, so it's best to keep that in mind.

Two days ago, before the game launched early for Premium Edition players, developer Compulsion Games posted an update on their Steam page to discuss Steam Deck compatibility. They mentioned that they playtested and tuned the settings for the Steam Deck and recommend turning on a 30 FPS lock with medium quality at the native 1280x800 resolution. You can turn off the FPS limiter if you feel like there's too much input latency.

And yes, HDR is supported for Steam Deck OLED users.

Still, based on how it's playing now, I am impressed. The game looks beautiful, runs exceptionally well so far, and it feels more and more like this is going to be an amazing portable experience. I can definitely see some wiggle room to try pushing for 40 FPS, and we will definitely be doing that in our full review, but for now, if you need to know if it's playable, the answer is a resounding yes! I would say it has earned that Steam Deck Verified badge.

South of Midnight is available for pre-purchase for $39.99 ahead of its April 8th release date. However, if you want to play right now, you can get the $49.99 premium edition.

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