Games Happy

Kepler Interactive and Sandfall Interactive’s turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is sensible. You’ll be able to learn our 10/10 evaluation of it right here for what Scott considered the sport. I have been enjoying the Steam model of the sport throughout my Steam Deck LCD, Steam Deck OLED, and my ROG Ally and after over 20 hours of the sport performed completely on Steam Deck with a couple of extra on ROG Ally, I am impressed with the discharge, however there are some things you are able to do to raise the expertise relying on what handheld you’ve got. This function will cowl Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 PC port options, Steam Deck advisable settings, ROG Ally impressions, ideas on how the sport performs throughout each LCD and OLED Steam Deck fashions, and extra. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 PC port options

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an Unreal Engine 5 sport and meaning it’s fairly demanding on all platforms, particularly on handhelds. The truth is, once you boot up the sport for the primary time, it would even set up particular UE stipulations. This occurred on all three handhelds for me initially, however it might need modified with the day one patch that simply went dwell a couple of hours in the past as of this writing. The PC model has assist for each controller and keyboard mouse enter choices with rebinding doable for the latter.

On the graphics facet, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gives a couple of graphics presets (low, medium, excessive, epic), upscaling choices (XeSS and TSR had been the one ones seen on Steam Deck and ROG Ally), upscaling high quality (extremely efficiency to native anti-aliasing), a body fee cap (30, 60, 120, limitless), a v-sync toggle, show mode (borderless, windowed, fullscreen), a display decision choice that does not really record decision choices however does record high quality ranges, gamma degree, distinction degree, and brightness degree. 

Past that, you possibly can regulate post-processing settings like movement blur, movie grain, chromatic aberration, and vignette with an choice to disable all of them as nicely. The precise choices to regulate what usually could be underneath graphics are underneath rendering right here. These allow you to regulate the standard for anti-aliasing, shadows, international illumination, reflection, post-processing, textures, visible results, foliage, and shading. The picture under on the left is what the sport will allow you to change on Steam Deck out of the field. The picture on the proper is the graphics choices you get to vary after you utilize the launch choice I am going over afterward on this function.

Earlier than the day one patch, all of those choices had been seen on each Steam Deck and ROG Ally. After the replace, the settings are virtually all locked down on Steam Deck to ship a lot better efficiency with extra cutbacks. I am going to get into these after I cowl my Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Steam Deck advisable settings, however for now I simply wished to make a remark should you’re confused as to why lots of the listed choices above aren’t current on Steam Deck for you.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Steam Deck Impressions on each OLED and LCD fashions

There are two components to my impressions. The primary is how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 felt earlier than the day one patch after I frolicked tweaking settings for the very best expertise and the second is with the day one patch that locks out many of the settings. I did my testing on each the Steam Deck LCD and OLED fashions right here. Since everybody who performs the sport at launch on Steam will get the day one patch (or later) expertise, I am together with my ideas on the sport pre-patch simply as a degree of comparability. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is marked as Steam Deck Unsupported by Valve, however it really is extra playable than many Steam Deck Verified video games I’ve examined lately. Given the attractive visuals, you’d assume reducing all of that all the way down to ship an expertise on Steam Deck won’t be price it, however I view this identical to I did with Dynasty Warriors: Origins. The sport can scale up and look unbelievable on high-end programs, however it additionally scales down nicely and delivers a good to excellent expertise on handhelds just like the Steam Deck. The screenshots under are from my Steam Deck OLED throughout completely different side ratios and even when performed docked on my 1440p monitor.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an Unreal Engine 5 title and people are often not superb on Steam Deck. With the day one patch, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 targets 45fps at 90hz on the Steam Deck OLED and 30fps at 60hz on the Steam Deck LCD. These targets are held quite nicely, however the visible expertise isn’t nice. I feel the settings are a bit too conservative, however they ship a steady out of the field expertise with 16:10 assist and Steam Cloud included.

Primarily based on the 20 or so hours I’ve performed of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on all three handhelds, the principle stress space for efficiency is definitely the world map and never the precise fight, dungeon, or zones the place you discover.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Steam Deck advisable settings for OLED and LCD fashions

You is likely to be questioning what I’ll cowl right here because the sport locks out most settings on Steam Deck out of the field. There’s a workaround for that, however if you wish to do as little tweaking as doable, I may also embrace some settings to simply enhance readability with out altering any launch choices.

If you wish to play utilizing the developer’s preset choices the place you possibly can’t management the rendering outdoors of upscaling and post-processing (movement blur, movie grain, chromatic aberration, and vignette), the defaults will ship 45fps expertise on the Steam Deck OLED and a 30fps expertise on the Steam Deck LCD. Simply be aware that the general picture high quality will actually drop on the default preset to hit that steady body fee. 

My Steam Deck advisable settings (for the out of the field expertise with no customized launch choice) for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on the OLED and LCD decks are to only elevate the decision scale for TSR or XeSS (relying in your desire) above the low preset to about 60 and even utilizing the medium preset. Since it is a turn-based RPG, some drops under 45 or 30 (at worst) aren’t horrible, however they do have an effect on how QTEs will really feel throughout fight. I opted for TSR with between 50 and 75% scaling for my gadgets ultimately. Whereas it has some ghosting, the general picture high quality was rather a lot higher than utilizing XeSS. There isn’t a FSR so far as I can inform proper now. 

As for enhancing issues with a little bit of tweaking, I made a decision to not use the locked settings and see how the sport scales. In the event you go into the sport’s properties on Steam Deck and scroll to the underside of the Normal tab, there is a textual content entry field for Launch Choices. Typing “SteamDeck=0 %command%” with out the citation marks, you get entry to the complete suite of choices in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The benefit right here is you possibly can enhance the visuals fairly a bit with some efficiency penalty, however PC gaming is all about choices is not it?

Even should you simply enter that launch choice and boot up the sport on Steam Deck, the efficiency will likely be decrease than with the developer’s compelled settings, however visuals are higher. I assume there are some behind the scenes rendering modifications to ship an ideal expertise on Steam Deck. The early indicators are excellent from day one and I am assured in it being an ideal expertise after some updates. 

In the event you’re on a Steam Deck OLED, I like to recommend utilizing the launch choice for higher visuals and capping the sport to 40 or 30fps utilizing the Steam Deck’s fast entry menu relying on if you’d like some fluidity or a persistently steady expertise. On a Steam Deck LCD, I might counsel enjoying with out the launch choice first and seeing how you discover the visuals as a result of this delivers 30fps expertise with visible cutbacks. In case you are comfortable with some drops under 30fps within the open world and through some cut-scenes and transitions, you possibly can go for the launch choice. 

One remaining suggestion I’ve is not for visuals or efficiency, however for controls. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has you aiming with free motion utilizing the proper stick to focus on weak factors when firing or night when factors of curiosity on the sector typically. This may be dramatically improved should you set the proper trackpad on Steam Deck to joystick as proven within the picture above. It means that you can get the most effective of utilizing a controller for every little thing, but additionally getting the precision aiming of a trackpad to save lots of your self time whereas aiming to shoot. Talking of the most effective of each enter choices, you may also faucet the display to progress dialog.

Whatever the settings I used (when aiming for 30fps or larger), the character hair and ghosting with digicam motion in some scenes had been the principle visible points in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on Steam Deck. In the event you get used to them and have in mind the cutbacks wanted, this sport is absolutely playable and I would advocate it above lots of the greater Steam Deck Verified video games which have launched currently.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ROG Ally Impressions – higher than Deck?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on ROG Ally delivers a greater expertise than Steam Deck, however I seen some stuttering and hitching that wasn’t current on Steam Deck even at matching settings and utilizing the ROG Ally in 25W turbo mode. I am unsure if that is shader-related, however it was noticeable. If you wish to play at 1080p for the crisp UI, I like to recommend enjoying on the low preset and setting TSR to 50%. It will ship an expertise that’s at all times above 30fps and it seems good on the ROG Ally display. 

In the event you use the identical settings above however play at 720p, you should have an expertise that often runs within the 40-50fps vary together with the world map that’s fairly demanding visually. Going into the precise zones will see 50-70fps usually. When performed with the turbo mode, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 may be very a lot price your time on ROG Ally due to the enhance in efficiency and picture high quality over Steam Deck.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a beautiful sport, however additionally it is a demanding one relating to enjoying on handhelds. In the event you’re comfortable with the visible cutbacks, it’s a good expertise after some tweaking with all issues thought-about. You probably have the choice, I would advocate enjoying by means of the principle story in your extra highly effective {hardware} to get probably the most out of the attractive world after which utilizing your handheld to finish any facet content material and even the publish sport. In the event you solely play on handhelds, I can nonetheless advocate Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on all of the three I’ve examined it on thus far.