Sonic Frontiers is out right now on consoles and PC for you to enjoy. The latest adventure of the blue blur takes him to an island chain full of dangers and mysteries. The Chaos Emeralds are missing, his friends have been kidnapped, and he has to learn new abilities to battle the threats that loom just around the corner. The game is getting mixed reactions from fans and critics, but we’re focusing now on being able to play it well. For example, you might wonder if the game is playable on the Steam Deck. The answer to that is “yes,” however, there are a few catches to that.
As noted by multiple people, while the Steam Deck can play the game, it doesn’t render it in the best light. For example, while the Steam Deck can play games at 60FPS, if you try to do that with Sonic Frontiers, you will have issues. Mainly, the graphics and lighting will flicker on and off. Shadows are another game aspect that looks bad while playing it on Steam Deck.
An animator on the hit internet show Death Battle also noticed this as he was playing Sonic Frontiers, and he listed how he was able to make it work for him for the most part:
Some might say this is more of a Steam Deck problem than a Sonic one. After all, as popular as the Steam Deck, it’s not flawless. Many games are “unsupported” by Valve, which means that issues like these can happen and could take a while to optimize. That being said, you’d hope that after all the buzz and hype for the game, it would work smoothly on all platforms, not just the high-end ones. The team even said that they worked hard on the Nintendo Switch port of the game so that they could ensure it ran as well as other versions.
Based on the game reviews, critics felt they could’ve done better. Even on consoles and PC, there are sometimes issues with the graphics and the framerate. One site noted that even with a super powerful Linux system, they couldn’t get the game to stick to 60 FPS. That’s not something you want to hear.
SEGA may get some patches out soon to fix things. In the meantime, you’ll need to adjust the settings to get the best experience. Hopefully, it all works out in the end.
Source: Gaming On Linux