I played Nightingale on the Steam Deck

earthpressnews

How well does Nightingale run on that Steam Deck? MeinMMO editor Benedikt Schlotmann tried it out and reports on his experiences. And they’re not just positive.

Nightingale has launched on Steam. And that’s why I installed the game directly on my Steam Deck. Because I wanted to know how well the new survival game works on the gaming handheld.

I report on my first experiences and explain what worked well and what worked poorly. But my first experiences are not so positive.

A notice: The game has not yet received certification from Valve for the Steam Deck. The manufacturer also emphasized in a statement before the release that the game was not yet optimized for the Steam Deck.

The network error constantly accompanied me on Steam.

Good performance, texts that are too small and constant connection drops

How well does Nightingale run on the Steam Deck? The game runs stable on the Steam Deck at low settings (performance) at 30 FPS. Then the Steam Deck gets very warm, but the volume is limited. In some cases you can also increase some settings, then the game looks a little nicer and remains stable at 30 FPS.

As soon as I increase the FPS limit to 60, the Steam Deck gets hot and audibly loud. Changing from the standard Proton version to “Proton Experimental” brought a little more stability.

What problems are there? The game is anything but optimized and you can tell that in a number of places in the game:

  • The menus are partially cut off at the edge and are not completely visible. For example with the construction menu.
  • Some menus and tasks cannot be controlled with the controller, but you need the mouse or your finger to close and confirm menus. This applies to the story sections, the production menu or when you have to choose maps for portals.
  • Some of the texts are extremely tiny and hard to read. This especially applies to the inventory or the item history at the bottom right. Other texts, such as the tutorials, are very easy to read. Unfortunately, texts generally cannot be scaled or enlarged. You can only use the digital screen magnifier from the Steam Deck, but that is cumbersome and inaccurate.
  • During character creation, certain settings cannot be made with the controller.

    • In any case, the biggest problem for me was a stable connection to the servers. Sometimes it took me 3 or 4 attempts to connect to the server and game. When I changed the world, I was also promptly kicked off the server. The always-online requirement has only annoyed me on the Steam Deck so far.

    The texts in Nightingale are sometimes extremely small. Pay attention to the text at the bottom right or the inventory slots.

    By the way, I didn’t have any problems with the gaming PC. However, the game annoyed me with its “update driver” requirement: Nightingale cannot be started with older graphics card software. Whoever thought this up.

    The productions can only be confirmed with a mouse or finger.
    The portal menu cannot be controlled cleanly with the controller.

    Wait with Nightingale if the Steam Deck is your platform

    Is Nightingale worth it for the Steam Deck? No, not at the moment (yet). However, the developer also emphasized at the time of release that the game was not yet optimized for the handheld console. And the lack of optimization is noticeable in every corner of the game.

    If you really want to play Nightingale on the Steam Deck, then you should wait until the developer has optimized the game. Until then, the game just “feels” better on the PC. I was quite disappointed in places and was especially incredibly annoyed by the server problems. I praise games like Enshrouded or Palworld, which are significantly more stable and work better on the Steam Deck.

    Nightingale on the Steam Deck: When it runs, it runs well – if the servers let me.

    What could still be improved? On the one hand, the developer is probably still working on controller support and will correct problematic settings in the long term. Then it should also be smoother and more pleasant to control on the Steam Deck.

    FSR 3.0 will also be coming to Nightingale soon. This promises a significant increase in performance with less heat generation. Then a stable 60 FPS should also be possible at higher settings. At least I’m cautiously optimistic.

    More games for the Steam Deck: If you are looking for very good alternatives for your Steam deck, then take a look at the following list. Here you will find a dozen really good games that look great, especially on the Steam Deck OLED:

    12 games you should definitely try on the Steam Deck OLED

    mmod-game