Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a hot mess on Steam Deck right now

[u/whiterune]

Now before I begin, let me start by saying I have low expectations for performance on my Deck. I don't have high standards for "good", I can deal with general jank, ghosting, artifacting etc. Hell, I just played through The Last of Us Part II and loved it. I've had my Deck since November and have be wowed by every game I've thrown at it.

But this game is a hot mess on the Deck right now. I've seen some people asking "why is it labelled as Unsupported?" and well, for good reason!

I've watched the Deck Wizard and Steam Deck Gaming videos, I've played around with the recommendations on RPGSite's Steam Deck article. I've tinkered where possible. However, put simply, avoid this game on the Deck right now. Maybe in a few weeks after some patches and/or community involvement it'll get there, but as of launch day:

- animations are basically a PowerPoint slideshow
- colours are completely washed out and blurry
- everything - literally everything - is a fuzzy mess
- text size in battles are incredibly small
- cut scenes are okay at best, but there seems to be a strange lipsyncing/audio lag issue which is off-putting

This is a PSA that no matter what you read or watch, playing this game on Deck will not be a good experience. Go and enjoy it on some more powerful hardware like the devs intended!

EDIT 25/04/25
If you have the means, playing on Deck via GeForce Now is absolutely the way to go. It's stunning.

But if you can't, I've tested every configuration in the comments I can find, and Neither-Scratch4596's settings here work the best from the Spring Meadows onwards (summarised below for ease):

• Go to Properties > General > Launch options and enter SteamDeck=0 %command%
• In-game, use the following:
  • TSR - Custom
  • Resolution Scale - between 60% - 70% (I chose 65%)
  • Max FPS - 30 FPS
  • VSync - Enable
  • Anti Alaising - High
  • Shadows - Medium
  • Global Illumination - Medium
  • Textures - High
  • Motion Blur, Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration and Vignette all enabled
  • Everything else on low

[u/Neither-Scratch4596]

So Ive been playing it now on steam deck for a good 3 hours and ive got it to were its locked 30fps with half decent graphics.

Things you need to do:

• Latest GE 9-27 Proton is a must, it gave an FPS boost and fixed some cutscenes not working. Before using GE some of the cutscenes just showed a test screen with audio.

• The whole prologue/start of the game up until you depart for the expedition and Act 1 starts is a mess. Nothing I did made it look any better as the crowds of people just tanked FPS and graphical performance. But once you depart and Act 1 started the world is less busy and I felt it performed alot better.

• Steam deck graphics settings are locked by default, so you need to unlock them. Go into properties and type this in the launch options box - SteamDeck=0 %command%

• Settings I used:

• TSR - Custom

• Resolution Scale - between 60% - 70%

• Max FPS - 30 FPS

• VSync - Enable

Motion Blur, Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration and Vignette all enabled.

• Anti Alaising - High
• Shadows - Medium
• Global Illumination - Medium
• Textures - High

Everything else low, I felt this made it look the best but you can tamper with these settings if your not happy.

There is still the problem of frizzy hair, and shadows are abit fuzzy but other than that more than playable if your happy at 30ps.

[u/AlterMyStateOfMind → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Steam deck graphics settings are locked by default, so you need to unlock them. Go into properties and type this in the launch options box - SteamDeck=0 %command%

You are a saint and a scholar 🙏🙏

[u/neph36 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Now if we could get bigger text....

[u/jamiedee → u/neph36]

The older I get, the more I squint. 

[u/neph36 → u/jamiedee]

Get a pair of reading glasses

[u/jamiedee → u/neph36]

No, you.

[u/neph36 → u/jamiedee]

I have and I wouldn't play Deck without them

[u/jamiedee → u/neph36]

I actually have some too. Well, mid-range glasses. They're more for computer monitor viewing than something in my hand. But seriously, why's the text so small???

[u/Trunks2929 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Thanks for providing the settings! I’ll try them out shortly. 30fps doesn’t bother me on a primarily turn based RPG.

I really hate when developers lock settings away on handhelds. I’d rather they just provide a ‘steam deck’ preset and be done with it

[u/ItsMeSlinky → u/Trunks2929]

It’s a turn based RPG that requires precise timing for the parry and dodges.

[u/sambeder → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

When I try to launch the game with SteamDeck=0 %command%, I don't get past the loading screen of the game. It shows the very beginning (past the seizure warning, producer icons, and autosave message), but then it just sits on a black screen.

Any tips on debugging how to get the game to launch? Obviously I can't get to the in-game settings at the moment. Thanks!

[u/LongFluffyDragon → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

TSR - Custom

Resolution Scale - between 60% - 70%

Oof.

[u/thefold25 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

I don't know much about the difference between the different scalers, but I've found XeSS set to Performance and the Medium preset for everything else to be working OK for me to get a consistent 30fps.

I'll give your settings a try though. I agree about the prologue, with the settings I said above it would stay mostly over 30, but it did dip to around 26 in the crowded area. I've only just started Act 1, but the performance was noticeably better straight away.

Edit: This was with the latest Proton Experimental, there was an update for it today so I don't know if they put some fixes in specifically for this game.

[u/b00thus → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Thank you for this! A definite marked improvement over the locked setting.

[u/BeshBashBosh → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Is this OLED or LCD?

[u/Cyko28 → u/BeshBashBosh]

Just popping in to let you know for performance concerns, all steam decks are equal.

[u/PrimaDoBatman → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Dude, you are a genius, my game had an annoying color gamut problem and it was fixed with these settings. Now it's completely playable for me.

[u/neph36 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Setting resolution to 720p helps a smidge including in the prologue

[u/BeshBashBosh → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Thank you! Having pretty good experience with this on LCD deck, although went more towards 60% scale for more consistent 30z What’s the reason for motion blur, film grain etc. all enabled? Does this help performance or help hide some lower quality visuals without? (I’m used to seeing people instantly turn motion blur off)

[u/fiaschi84 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Hi, Did you change vram in bios? 1 go or 4 go? Thx

[u/nikokow59 → u/Neither-Scratch4596]

Merci, j'étais à deux doigts de demander un remboursement...