I'm not 100% sure if the final version of Nocti is going to be free or not. I've been told by friends that I should charge for it, but I'm leaning more towards it being free/pay what you want with 5 dollars giving access to a concept art/behind the scenes PDF.
Spending 100$ to put a free game on steam is not appealing to me, as a person without a job. If it was added to steam there would be no achievements (it's possible but I don't want to poke the jenga tower of plugins any more than I need to), and it should work on the steamdeck pretty well through itch when I make a linux build.
The biggest benefit would be getting more eyes on the project, but unless I'd be able to make money from those extra views there's no incentive.
Of course, Nocti will probably take another two years or so to finish (Fingers crossed) so maybe my opinion will change by then!