Atomfall Steam Deck Impressions – PC Port Features, Rog Ally Performance, and More
Ahead of our full review of Atomfall from Rebellion, I have a feature covering the PC port, how it scales on Steam Deck, ROG Ally impressions, and more. The survival action RPG has also gotten Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch. For this pre-release feature, I'm limited in what I can show in screenshots to the early hours of the game only. I have tested the game beyond that, and will comment on how it runs later on, but I can only show screenshots from the early hours. With that aside, Atomfall is one of the rare new Steam Deck Verified games that deserves its rating, at least based on what I've played so far.
Atomfall PC graphics options and display settings
Atomfall on PC lets you adjust display mode (exclusive fullscreen, borderless, windowed), resolution (1024x768 to 4K), toggle v-sync, adjust the frame rate limit (30, 60, 90, 120, unlimited), background frame rate limit (15, 30, match foreground), resolution scaling (50% to 200%), choose a graphics detail preset (low, medium, high, ultra, custom), adjust screen brightness, toggle HDR, toggle async compute, and toggle mouse lag reduction.
The Atomfall detailed graphics options let you adjust anti-aliasing (off, low, medium, high, ultra), shadow detail (low, medium, high, ultra), reflection detail (low, medium, high, ultra), draw distance (low, medium, high, ultra), texture detail (low, medium, high, ultra), water detail (low, medium, high, ultra), toggle ambient occlusion, toggle screen space shadows, toggle motion blur, toggle tessellation, and toggle obscurance fields.
Atomfall accessibility options
While not related to graphics, Atomfall has a few notable accessibility options like letting you adjust the text scale, opacity of some UI elements, the various colors used for NPCs, the crosshair color, the scale of the general HUD, indicators for traversal, icons for enemies, and more. You can even adjust camera-related accessibility options like screen shake, sway, bob, and more. There are also audio assistance and control assistance options.
Atomfall PC control options
Atomfall on PC lets you edit bindings for inputs across gameplay, UI, player menu, and more. You can also rebind some options as "Hold" instead of just a button press. In addition to the default control options, Rebellion has a Default Left-Handed preset that mirrors the default preset in addition to two 1-Hand presets: Left and Right.
Atomfall Steam Deck performance
Atomfall is Steam Deck Verified already. That used to mean something before, but I'm always skeptical of any notable developer's game being Verified now. Thankfully, Atomfall actually plays and looks very good on Valve's handheld with some tweaks. This isn't surprising considering it is also shipping on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but it is good to see nonetheless. I've tested the opening few hours twice with different graphics options and also how it plays about ten or so hours later. The performance varies quite a bit depending on whether you're indoors or outside in the open zones as expected.
Before getting to the recommended settings, Atomfall has full controller support, 16:10 support, Steam Cloud support, and basically feels right at home on the Steam Deck. The one downside right now is the lack of HDR support. It is grayed out in the build I have even when testing on my external HDR display and using the "SteamDeck=0 %command%" launch option.
Atomfall Steam Deck recommended settings
My Atomfall Steam Deck recommended settings allow for two possibilities: a consistent experience throughout or one that delivers better performance indoors, but a lower frame rate in the open zone. I say open zone because Atomfall uses smaller interconnected locations rather than a full seamless open world. If you want a more consistent experience, I recommend using a combination of the low and medium preset with the render scale set to 90 with the game running at 800p. You can then cap the frame rate to 40fps using the Steam Deck's quick access menu. The main setting I turned down was shadows to low to ensure performance holds up well outdoors in combat as well. These settings are conservative, but they deliver a consistent experience.
If you want to aim for a higher frame rate, don't use the 40fps cap. The game can hit well above 60fps indoors on Steam Deck using most settings at medium, but shadows at low. You will run into drops to the low 40s outdoors though. If you don't mind a variable experience, this is a good option for you. Aiming for 60fps outdoors requires using the low preset and render scale set to 90 or less. It can drop below to the high 50s in busy situations, but the overall experience is good here.
Atomfall ROG Ally performance impressions and recommended settings
Moving over to the more powerful ROG Ally, Atomfall actually has a launcher here. When you boot the game up on Steam Deck, it goes to the splash logos and then the title screen. On ROG Ally, you are presented with a launcher that lets you adjust some graphics options (which you can also do in-game), play the game, or view Rebellion's social accounts. I did my testing using the 25W mode with the graphics set to 5GB VRAM.
Given how well Atomfall runs on Steam Deck, I wanted to push things on the ROG Ally and see what it was capable of. When running at 1080p with a 75% render scale on the low preset, it held around 70fps even in combat in the open zone locations. Moving indoors saw the frame rate hit the 120fps target often as well. When playing at native 1080p on the low preset, expect performance around 40fps outdoors with well above 60 at times indoors.
Out of curiosity, I tried the ultra preset at 1080p and the frame rate dipped below 20fps regularly on ROG Ally. I obviously didn't expect it to be playable, but I did test out the preset to see the visual differences here.
Atomfall scales very well on both PC handhelds as you can see and is an easy recommendation on both so far. Stay tuned for our full review in the near future. Atomfall releases on March 27 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store). It is also included in PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.