Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles was offered by Wired Productions for overview. Thanks!
This overview used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED particulars shall be coming later.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is an odd one. It provides me all of the vibes of a recreation that ought to have an “Early Entry” label on the Steam retailer web page, nevertheless it does not. Once you boot the sport, you are instructed it’s a “growth construct,” there appears to be fairly an absence of selection in issues to do, but it is launched as a full-release recreation.
Briefly, the sport is a sandbox the place you command an airship and may assemble outposts and settlements on a water-filled planet to realize assets and, properly… assemble extra outposts and settlements.
That is my situation with Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles. It is billed as a “Artistic Sandbox,” the place the sport has no precise targets aside from increasing however constructing and increasing your base wasn’t very satisfying. There is a restricted choice of buildings, and the sport decides the place to put them to a point. Many of the world is water and cannot be constructed on, and the entire thing feels relatively empty and directionless.
You begin the sport by putting an outpost. You then place walkways from this outpost, resulting in “towers” or checkpoints. There are a number of useful resource factors round your outpost the place you possibly can construct extractors, and you need to hook the outpost as much as these extractors through walkways to generate assets.
Sadly, I feel the problem is that you just’re simply putting “roads” in an area. Quite a lot of the satisfaction of constructing roads and logistics is working round or with the panorama and designing environment friendly programs and pathways. There’s none of that right here. You’ll at all times be constructing straight walkways; there’s by no means a purpose to not construct because the crow flies aside from aesthetics.
Even when beginning a recreation, there’s a extreme lack of content material. On a brand new recreation, you’re given the selection of three “Eventualities,” which perform as save slots. You possibly can choose your beginning faction, place, and some issues to make the sport tougher or simpler, similar to disabling hostiles or beginning with extra assets.
There is a “free construct” mode on the primary menu, which is much more sandbox-y than the sport’s regular mode, with no limitations utilized to what you are able to do. However you possibly can’t save on this mode, so something you construct is misplaced as soon as you allow the sport and re-enter. For a recreation about “designing” and constructing your fortress, it appears loopy that the mode centered on doing precisely what you need is deliberately ham-stringed by the lack to save lots of.
There’s additionally only one pre-made map within the recreation with no random era. It is 90% water, with the odd island right here and there and about 7 NPC settlements that basically will do nothing until you work together with them to commerce or declare struggle.
Random occasions occur however are triggered by the participant as and when they need them. These can vary from a brand new ship to conduct commerce or struggle, a brand new faction becoming a member of your settlement, or hostiles that assault. The sport purposefully doesn’t pressure any approach of enjoying upon you, that means you possibly can determine when and in case you ever need to interact in fight or commerce.
Fight can also be fairly primary: as soon as, or if, you declare struggle on a settlement, your items will mechanically hearth at any enemy items inside vary, likewise for the enemy. A bar goes throughout the highest of the display screen whenever you’re in fight, which particulars the well being of your fleet versus the enemy fleet.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is a decent-looking recreation. The clouds and fog look good, particularly whenever you’re on the dawn/sundown time of day. Though it is a bit dreary and wet typically, that is an apocalyptic world. The water additionally seems to be fairly respectable. The islands themselves and the buildings aren’t fairly as fairly as the remainder of the sport, principally made up of pretty low-poly belongings.
Development is achieved by gaining inhabitants in varied factions, with larger populations unlocking new tiers, permitting you to recruit extra captains and increase additional. Nonetheless, it is all the identical, and the development does not unlock any new gameplay mechanics.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is a purposefully aimless recreation. There is not any purpose to do just about something in it. You design a base for the sake of designing a base, to not defend your self, to not earn extra assets, to not climb a leaderboard, simply because it will possibly look spectacular on the finish of the day. You possibly can construct a base in 5 minutes that can, from a gameplay perspective at the very least, carry out simply in addition to one you have spent hours on.
That is not actually why I play video games, particularly single-player ones the place I am unable to share my creations with buddies, however in case you are into that, this is perhaps the sport for you. It is definitely a novel method.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles – Steam Deck Efficiency
Let’s begin by saying that Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles does a reasonably good job of working properly on the Steam Deck. It has 1280×800 decision assist, so there are not any black bars across the edges of the display screen, and the controller assist is sweet, too, with completely different management schemes relying in your desire. You possibly can’t fault how Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles handles itself on the Steam Deck.
I am providing two presets as we speak: one for visible high quality and framerate and the opposite for saving battery life.
Really helpful Settings – 60 FPS
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Restrict of 60 FPS / 60Hz. We can’t be setting a TDP Restrict right here.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles has pretty simplified graphics settings, so for this preset, you will merely need to set Visible High quality at round 90%, disable Anti-Aliasing, set Put up-Processing to Max, set Shadows to Excessive High quality, and maintain your decision at 1280×800.
The sport at all times held 60 FPS for me on these settings, with occasional dips to 58 or 59, relying on the climate. Increasing my settlement appeared to have little impact on efficiency, so that you’re most likely protected to maintain these settings. I did not increase to a “mega-fortress” similar to those proven within the recreation’s trailers, however increasing my very own and visiting giant NPC settlements did not drop the framerate from 60, so you ought to be protected until you go loopy along with your fortress.
This preset attracts numerous energy, although. It is best to count on wherever between 18W and 24W from the battery, that means Steam Deck LCD house owners can count on round 1.5 hours of battery life from this preset, and Steam Deck OLED customers simply above 2 hours.
Temperatures are excessive, round 80-85C, so count on some fan noise, and your Steam Deck shall be sizzling to the contact.
Body Drops Throughout Sure Climate Situations:
I as soon as observed that the body price dropped significantly on the High quality preset when the solar was rising or setting, inflicting an orange glow to gentle up the clouds or fog. This appeared to trigger appreciable stress on the Steam Deck’s GPU, making the body price drop into the 40s. Decreasing Put up-Processing to the “Low” setting fixes these drops, however they do not happen typically.
Battery Life Settings – 40 FPS
In order for you extra battery life and fewer warmth, this preset is perhaps your favourite.
We’re locking the framerate to 40 FPS within the SteamOS settings after which making use of a TDP Restrict of simply 6W.
For the graphics, decrease the visible high quality to its lowest, disable anti-aliasing, put post-processing to minimal, and no shadows. We maintain our decision at 1280×800.
With these settings, we are able to maintain 40 FPS. Even with the decrease visible settings, the sport nonetheless seems to be respectable on a handheld. The low-poly nature of the sport helps it maintain up with out as a lot shading. Nevertheless, we sacrifice some good post-processing results on issues like fog, clouds, and lighting.
By making these sacrifices, we see the facility draw at simply 10-11W, that means we are able to simply get 3-3.5 hours from a Steam Deck LCD battery and a very good 4-4.5 hours from the OLED mannequin.
Temperatures had been additionally a lot cooler, hovering round 65C throughout testing. This meant there was minimal fan noise, and the Steam Deck stayed comfy to carry.
The framerate drop skilled on the High quality preset does not apply right here, as our Put up-Processing is low sufficient already.
Accessibility:
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is not very accessible, however all voice strains are subtitled, and the UI may be scaled, though I discovered that it’s scaled fairly properly by default. There are additionally adjustable controls and digital camera sensitivity choices.
Conclusion:
I will be trustworthy: Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles wasn’t my kind of recreation. The entire objective of the sport is to design an aesthetically pleasing fortress. Nonetheless, the gameplay could be very shallow, and there is not a lot to do however constantly place walkways on your residents to construct alongside. The closest factor I can evaluate it to could be Cities Skylines or SimCity, but when all of the zoning and placement of buildings was executed for you, and also you simply needed to construct the roads.
It is a distinctive recreation; I am going to give it that. And in case you are searching for one thing like this recreation, it is most likely your solely alternative, as I am unaware of every other recreation that focuses purely on designing a city/fortress and nothing else. The closest recreation I can consider is perhaps Townscaper, which, funnily sufficient, was within the “Video games like this” suggestions on the backside of the sport’s Steam web page.
Having stated all that, the Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles does run properly on the Steam Deck, each by way of efficiency and controls. There’s sufficient flexibility in settings to get the sport simply the way you need it, whether or not with visible high quality or a protracted battery life. I went with the visible high quality preset as a result of the sport is about aesthetics.
Our overview is predicated on the PC model of this recreation.
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