Nivalis Nights Is An Interesting Life Simulator That Shouldn't Be Played on Steam Deck

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There have been so many great simulators over the years, but I was extremely excited when Nivalis Nights was announced. Taking place in the same world as Cloudpunk, this game turns the experience into a life simulation where we will have to grow businesses, manage restaurants and nightclubs, and even put together our own apartments. It’s a full-fledged life simulator in a gorgeous cyberpunk city, and I’ve been very much looking forward to it.

Thanks to 505 Games, we are reviewing the game, though we haven’t had nearly enough time to actually review it. Our full review will be coming very soon, but I have had the chance to play through it enough to gauge whether or not it’ll be a good experience on the Steam Deck. However, for those who were hoping to play this on the go, you may be disappointed.

First, I do want to say that I really enjoy the game so far. Not only can we manage the restaurants, but we can work them as well, and I love how freeform it is to place furniture exactly where we want. Along with the gorgeous visuals, it has been a lot of fun to just go to each district, find new shops, talk to more people, and make as much money as we can. As a life simulator, I am really enjoying.

However, it is going to be rough on the Steam Deck. Looking at the minimum system requirements, I’m not surprised, but I have seen a lot of optimization for games that have higher requirements in general. Because of that, I still held out some hope, but as soon as I started playing, that hope started to fade.

Initially, Nivalis Nights was running decently well. On the default settings, which get close to the lowest with shadows turned on, I was getting 30 FPS. Around my apartment and some other areas around the city, it will stick to 30 FPS and above. And even though the game is on the lower settings, it still looks really good. If it’s stuck like this, I would consider it a good time. There are even some spots that can hit 40 and 50 FPS (when staying out past curfew), which is great if it could just stick there.

But it doesn’t. As soon as we leave our apartment to go to the main area where our first shop will be, the framerate will nose-dive to the 20s, and sometimes go down to the 10s. It doesn’t feel good in the slightest, and it gets worse, depending on where you’re looking. Just trying to run through that area feels horrible. It makes sense, since the area is so populated with different shops, different restaurants, and more, but even if we turn the shadows off and set them to the lowest possible settings for the game, it’s impossible to enjoy. I even tried turning the resolution down all the way to 320x200, and it still couldn’t hit 30 FPS in those areas.

I have had less than 24 hours to actually try the game out, so there may be other areas that run well or some that run worse. However, with this being the main area we stick in to begin with, it’s pretty bad. This is also before I’ve built out my restaurants or apartment, which could bring down the performance further. I’m not sure if it would, but it’s a possibility.

I also wanna make note that the game does support controllers, but it doesn’t always feel great. It’s fine when running around, and I do recommend turning up the sensitivity for camera movement, but I felt like it was a chore to navigate the UI of trading and buying groceries or products using the gamepad. It’s not the end of the world, but it didn’t feel as intuitive as I would’ve liked.

Overall, I do think Nivalis Nights is an intriguing and fun game so far, and I can’t wait to keep playing to expand my businesses. I want to see what it’s like to live in this world and explore it to its fullest. However, I can’t see myself doing it on the Steam Deck, and based on what I’ve experienced so far, I can’t in good faith recommend it on the Deck to anyone else. If you have another way to play this game, whether it be on a more powerful computer or the Steam Machine, or you can stream it to your Deck, then I recommend prioritizing playing it that way.

Nivalis Nights is on sale for $22.49 until October 13th.

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