By There is something undeniably magical about firing up a brand-new game on a handheld console. Recently, the wonderful folks at THQ Nordic handed me an early access key for their upcoming title, Tides of Tomorrow. Naturally, my first instinct was to boot it up on the Steam Deck to see just how well this intriguing adventure handles on the go. Officially releasing on April 22nd, this game brings a fascinating twist to the narrative genre, but as with many pre-release builds, it comes with its own set of technical quirks.
A Ripple Effect: Choices That Matter
If you are a fan of games where your decisions carry real weight, Tides of Tomorrow is going to catch your attention immediately. The core concept is incredibly unique: it relies on a system of asynchronous actions and consequences. You are not just dealing with the fallout of your own choices; you are also navigating the world left behind by the person who played before you.
It is a brilliant social experiment disguised as a video game. Every action your predecessor took shapes the environment and narrative you experience, and in turn, the choices you make at the end of each level will ripple out to affect the next player’s journey. You can choose to follow a specific friend’s playthrough online, tackle the consequences of your favorite streamer, or even play offline with preset choices if you prefer a more isolated experience. It adds a layer of unpredictable depth that kept me completely hooked from start to finish.
Under the Hood: Steam Deck Settings and Performance
Now, let us talk about the technical side of things. Whether you are gaming on a Steam Deck, a Lenovo Legion Go, or an ASUS ROG Ally X, getting the settings right is always a crucial balancing act for handhelds. When diving into the settings menu for Tides of Tomorrow, I was surprised to find it incredibly sparse. In fact, the only real graphical options available to tweak are Resolution Scale and VSync.
After tinkering around, the absolute best balance I found for the Steam Deck was turning VSync off and setting the Resolution Scale to exactly 60 percent. With these settings in place, the performance is a bit of a mixed bag, which is to be expected from an early access build. For the majority of the game, the frame rate comfortably sits around 30 frames per second. It is totally playable and perfectly fine for a narrative-heavy experience, but it is not without its noticeable fluctuations.
The Highs and Lows of Handheld Exploration
When you venture out into the water for exploration or find yourself in the middle of a combat sequence, the game actually shines. In these open aquatic areas, I was hitting upwards of 40 frames per second. This is exactly the kind of performance I expect and love to see in this style of game. The visuals remain relatively crisp, and the gameplay feels incredibly fluid.
However, the performance takes a baffling nosedive in some of the less demanding areas. For example, there is a canteen section early in the game. It is a confined space, and while there are quite a few NPCs milling about, there is not a massive amount of action going on. Yet, simply having a casual chat with one of these NPCs caused my frame rate to plummet into the low 20s. There is really no justifiable reason for the performance to tank this hard in a static conversational scene, and it definitely pulled me out of the immersion.
The FSR Elephant in the Room
The biggest technical hurdle I encountered, though, was the game’s aggressive use of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). In the water exploration scenes, FSR does its job quietly in the background without making things look overdone. But the moment you step into certain top-level sections, the FSR goes completely into overdrive.
If you have seen any of the official promotional screenshots for Tides of Tomorrow, you know it is a gorgeous game. But on the Steam Deck, because of this forced FSR fuzziness, some of the character models end up looking drastically different from their high-resolution counterparts. It creates a blurry, over-sharpened mess that I desperately wanted to disable. Unfortunately, with the current barebones settings menu, there is no way to just turn the FSR off. I am really hoping the developers add a toggle for this in the near future, as it would vastly improve the visual clarity.
Final Thoughts: Waiting on the Day-One Patch
Overall, Tides of Tomorrow is a genuinely solid game with a narrative hook that is easily its strongest asset. The interplay of choices between past, present, and future players makes for some incredibly interesting scenarios that you just do not see in everyday gaming.
That said, the technical execution on the Steam Deck currently leaves a bit to be desired. Between the unjustified frame rate drops in simple NPC areas and the overly aggressive, fuzzy FSR, it is clear that the game needs some optimization. Because I was playing a pre-release build, I am highly optimistic that we will see some substantial day-one patches to iron out these kinks. With a few performance updates and a more robust settings menu, this could easily become a must-play title for handheld enthusiasts. Until then, I will be keeping a close eye on the update logs, ready to dive back into the waters and see what consequences await.
