Elden Ring Nightreign would possibly exchange its supply materials’s sprawling RPG exploration with a mad sprint round tightly-nestled hotspots, however underneath the bonnet, that is nonetheless primarily simply Elden Ring with a faster dash and character fashions of hitherto-unseen birdpeople. Even the system requirements are, save for a minor CPU bump, a replica and paste job, confirming the feathers aren’t even that high-poly.
Because of this, this spinoff runs equally properly on the Steam Deck, even showing to reap the benefits of the identical SteamOS/Proton tweak that made Elden Ring much less stutter-prone on Valve’s handheld particularly. My Steam Deck settings guide for the base game works right here too, although having been yanked round Limveld at greave-splintering speeds by loothounds Nic and Ollie, I really assume additional high quality cuts may very well be prudent. That is FromSoft at their paciest, and it is smart to assist framerates sustain.
Scroll down for those who simply need these up to date settings, although Deck homeowners must also know that a few of Elden Ring’s much less likeable quirks dwell on in Nightreign too. It nonetheless, for instance, solely fills out 1280×720’s value of display area even if in case you have the native 800p decision enabled. There are additionally circumstances of petite textual content and icons that will require some gentle squinting, particularly on the default map view. Then once more, I personally discovered these readable sufficient, and also you’ll possible find yourself zooming in on the map to examine potential looting/bloodshedding websites anyway.
As you’d count on from From, this has all been sympathetically designed round gamepad controls, an strategy that fits the Deck simply nice. Nightreign’s newfound cooperative focus additionally refrains from solely leaving handheld gamers behind: there’s a superbly usable Offline Mode (once more, similar to Elden Ring) that permits for solo expeditions once you take your Steam Deck away from the consolation of a dependable Wi-Fi connection.
That’s to not say it’s suited to prolonged coach journeys, as Nightreign drained my LCD Steam Deck’s battery from 100% to empty in 1h 22m. That’s 11 minutes shy of the unique recreation (with each operating at 50% speaker quantity with 50% display brightness). However, whereas it lasts, it performs properly, runs properly, and takes up lower than 21GB of SSD area as soon as put in, so that you in all probability gained’t need assistance from a microSD card. Perhaps a power bank, however not a microSD.
Elden Ring Nightreign Steam Deck settings information
Nightreign’s visible settings are nearly one other excellent match for Elden Ring’s, except ray tracing being eliminated. No big loss there. Common efficiency is acquainted too: on the Low preset, nearly your entire time might be spent within the 30-45fps vary, and since a whole lot of these settings solely impose minor pressure on framerates, you possibly can nonetheless get Nightreign wanting so much nicer than Low whereas nonetheless holding above 30fps.
The settings I’ve beforehand prompt for the bottom recreation (and Shadow of the Erdtree) tended in direction of Prime quality, with a handful of deeper cuts to keep away from dips into the twenties. These are nice to strive once more, although once more, Nightreign’s battle royale and roguelike influences make it a a lot sooner, action-heavy shindig than OG Elden Ring. Which is saying one thing, when your main technique of interacting with the latter’s world was thwacking it with surfboard-sized swords. Right here, then, I’d suggest going a little bit additional with high quality reductions – to not the purpose of wanting like Low, however sufficient to wring out a number of extra frames, which can in flip make for efficiency that matches that continuous tempo.
- Texture high quality: Medium
- Antialiasing high quality: Excessive
- SSAO: Medium
- Depth of discipline: Excessive
- Movement blur: Off
- Shadow high quality: Medium
- Lighting high quality: Medium
- Results high quality: Medium
- Volumetric lighting high quality: Low
- Reflection high quality: Most
- Water floor high quality: Excessive
- Shader high quality: Medium
- International illumination high quality: Medium
- Grass high quality: Medium
These settings often get me 35-40fps on each the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, in comparison with 30-35fps with my earlier settings record. 5fps doesn’t sound like so much however there’s a delicate smoothness distinction in movement, and within the much less demanding corners of the map (assume caves and dungeons), you’re extra more likely to see increased peaks into the 40’s. Perhaps even 50fps-plus, although like my life when Margit exhibits up, that is fairly fleeting.
