Wayfinder Closed Beta Impressions

While our team played so many amazing games during PAX East, one of our favorites to play as a team was Wayfinder. This awesome little MMO will see you and your friends teaming up to take on the chaos that has overrun the world. When we played at PAX, we were restricted to a computer and while we had fun, I was very curious how the game ran on the Steam Deck. Thankfully, I was able to find out this weekend as I was invited to a closed beta for the game!

In this beta, I was able to get a taste of what the game would be like and a teaser for what to expect performance wise! So, without any time to waste, let's get right into it!

This is a closed beta, so all areas of the game, including performance, are subject to change. While I did take screenshots, I will not be posting them directly as they are watermarked with my Steam account's info.

Wayfinder - Gameplay Thoughts

In the beginning, I felt Wayfinder was going to be quite similar to other MMOs and their gameplay loop, and I was right to some degree, but it still felt unique to some degree. Like other popular MMORPGs, you will have a third-person view and be able to customize your character with weapons, accessories, and aesthetic styles. You will be able to craft the weapons and accessories using materials you get from killing enemies in the world and completing quests and dungeons. You will also have an experience system, leveling up not only your character, but your weapon as well.

While you will be able to travel through the open world and encounter new areas and enemies, the dungeon system in Wayfinder is where we start to see a diverging gameplay loop. Using your trusty Gloom Dagger, you will be able to modify the dungeon that you go into, changing which beasts are available to hunt, what bosses appear, and the materials that you can collect. This gives you a nice level of customizability in the adventure you have, which is very much welcome!

In the beta, I was able to choose one of three characters, each having a unique variety of abilities and weapons to utilize that range from ranged to melee to magic. Just like during PAX East, I ended up going with Silo as I preferred using the ranged gun. He also had an arsenal of abilities like the fire bomb, which lights enemies on fire and the oil bomb, which slows enemies. I was also able to combine these two bombs to detonate the oil and ignite them all. This was always pretty cool to see how the abilities could interact with each other, which is something that all characters have to some degree.

Wayfinder felt very smooth overall though and I loved the combat in it. The fighting didn't feel too floaty and was quite responsive to my attacks. On top of that, playing with my crew was a blast as we powered through our carefully customized dungeons to get new materials to make ourselves more powerful. It was great being able to work together, them taking the front as the melee tank, while I stuck to the back and shot them from afar.

I see a lot of potential with Wayfinder and I can personally see myself investing a lot more hours into it. I was left wanting to play more and continue gathering materials, even though my progress won't carry over to the full game.

Steam Deck Performance

Performance of Wayfinder on the Steam Deck was playable, but definitely ranged and went from great to iffy depending on where I was. To start, there were a plethora of graphics options with the game, including an implementation of FSR. It didn't define which version it had, but it definitely helped performance to some degree a bit more than most of the other options. It made the game

With a medium graphics preset at the FSR quality setting, I was able to easily achieve 40 FPS in dungeons, which felt silky smooth and made the experience significantly better than 30. This held strong for the most part during the dungeons around 16W - 17W drain. While there were some slight dips, this held even when bringing in the crew with me. I was extremely excited to see this, but unfortunately, this wasn't the same outside the dungeon.

As soon as I got into the open world, performance took a nose dive. Without any caps, the game fluctuated wildly from 28 - 34 FPS and would only settle down when looking directly down so you couldn't see buildings in the distance. Even when view distance was set to the lowest, Wayfinder still had trouble maintaining a stable framerate. Hopefully, this will even out a bit once the beta is over as I feel this could be an incredible experience for the Steam Deck, but time will tell on this one.

Concluding Thoughts

Wayfinder left me with a lot of hope and excitement as I was kicked out of the game when the beta ended. The game's mechanics, paired with its visual style, worked really well and I could see myself spending days and days trying out new combinations for dungeons to get the materials I needed to power up. Along with the unique powers of each character, I felt there was a lot of variety and great opportunities to work together with your team using the other heroes.

Performance left a bit to be desired, but with this being in closed beta, I will keep an open mind. The dungeon's framerate was able to hold up, for the most part, but outside of that had a bit of an issue trying to keep a stable rate. Overall though, I would say this is promising and I am looking forward to seeing the release.

Wayfinder is currently on Steam and is slated for Early Access release this summer.

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