Tides of Tomorrow Looks to be a Short, but Intriguing Narrative Adventure Best Enjoyed off the Steam Deck - Preview

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After checking out Tides of Tomorrow on the Steam Deck back in October last year, I was eager to get my hands back on it again with an updated build of the game and see if things had changed, in particular, if the slightly spotty performance on the Steam Deck had improved.

Tides of Tomorrow Preview - Gameplay Impressions

The gameplay in Tides of Tomorrow definitely feels more fleshed out in this updated build. There were more ways to handle a situation than I had noticed before, and the gameplay felt a little smoother and more polished. The actions I took this time around presented a more "action" based sequence of events, rather than the more stealth-like approach I took last time I played. Even then, the game seems to be more streamlined to allow for quicker progress.

Tides of Tomorrow is a very narrative-based experience, with even combat often handled in a "fight" dialogue option that plays out for you, so don't expect too much action here; you'll largely be trying to avoid conflict.

Rather, Tides of Tomorrow focuses heavily on player choice and uses the newly named "Story-Link" system to allow players to follow in the footsteps of another random player, or perhaps a streamer, and have their game world affected by the choices the previous player made.

The storyline itself is also a bit more fleshed out, with an intriguing, albeit simple, narrative. That also leads me to one concern: it feels as though the game will air on the shorter side. I believe the developers are very much relying on the "Story-Link" system to encourage players to do multiple playthroughs, following different players and choosing different options in order to achieve replayability of the story, and I don't know if the story and gameplay change that much from choices to persuade players to double or even triple-dip here.

One positive I did notice in this build is that the Story-Link system seems to be even more interwoven than before, with frequent pop-ups informing you of how the previous player's decisions have impacted your playthrough, and how your decisions will impact anyone following you. It's a unique system, and I'm glad to see it being used more.

At the end of the day, while the premise of Tides of Tomorrow is a good one, I'm worried that the game is still rather simplistic in nature, likely able to be finished in a few short hours, and while the Story-Link system itself is cool, I don't know if the narrative it's been paired with does it justice.

This system does mean that the game, at least the preview build I had, requires an internet connection to play.

Tides of Tomorrow Preview - Steam Deck Performance Tested

Unfortunately, when playing the preview build of Tides of Tomorrow, performance was a little on the rough side. When exploring Scrap Harbour, there were frequent dips below 20 FPS, resulting in what most would regard as an unplayable experience. Marketland was also largely in the 20s when playing, similar to last year's build.

Performance did improve in other areas of the game, particularly in the open sea, where it regularly exceeds 40 FPS, but this is a small minority of the gameplay.

It seems the developers have set the Steam Deck to run on low settings, as there is clear resolution scaling, with artefacts on moving objects, but it's still not enough to make the game fully playable on the Steam Deck yet.

Power draw was also very high, staying at around 22-23W the entire time I was playing.

Final Thoughts

Tides of Tomorrow's Story-Link system is an intriguing concept, and it works great for a single playthrough, but the game seems to be reliant on it providing enough replayability that players will dive in for repeat playthroughs of this seemingly short narrative adventure, and I don't know if that will be the case.

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