I play most of my PC video games by Steam, however because of Epic’s weekly giveaways over the past two years, I’ve amassed a surprisingly massive assortment of video games that I would love to have the ability to play on the Steam Deck, Valve’s new handheld gaming PC. The issue: Epic would not have an official launcher for Linux, and the third-party launcher choices that exist on Linux are presently tough to put in.
Fortunately there is a intelligent workaround that may get you enjoying video games out of your Epic library on the Steam Deck in just some minutes, with no danger of messing up your SteamOS set up. Let’s get into it.
set up the Epic launcher on the Steam Deck, step-by-step
I discovered this system from YouTuber Gaming On Linux, so head to their channel in order for you a information in video kind. Here is my step-by-step breakdown.
1. Maintain the Steam Deck energy button to deliver up the ability menu, then choose Change to Desktop to modify over to the Linux desktop.
2. Be certain the desktop model of Steam is working. This can can help you pull up the on-screen keyboard by holding Steam + X.
3. Open Firefox (or Chrome should you’ve put in it) and carry out a seek for “Epic installer” to drag up the Epic Video games obtain web page. Obtain the Home windows executable. (Should you occur to be studying this text in your Steam Deck, here’s the link!)
4. Open Steam. Use the Sport > Add a Non-Steam Sport To My Library menu choice to deliver up a dialogue field. Click on Browse. Within the dropdown field, click on “https://www.pcgamer.com/” to navigate to the highest degree folder on the Steam Deck, then observe this path till you arrive at your downloads folder:
/ dwelling / deck / Downloads
Now change the “File sorts” dropdown to “All recordsdata” and you need to see the Epic Installer in your folder. Click on Open so as to add it to Steam’s checklist of non-Steam video games, then click on Add Chosen Applications.
5. Search your library for “Epic” to search out the installer. Proper-click and go to Properties > Compatibility and test the field that claims “Pressure the usage of a selected Steam Play compatibility instrument” and choose the newest steady model of Proton.
6. Click on Play to run the installer. It will take a minute or so after which disappear. You’ve got efficiently put in the Home windows model of the Epic launcher inside SteamOS. Now we simply must make it so you’ll be able to really use it.
7. That is the one step that is a little bit of a ache: you’ll want to discover the folder inside Steamapps the place the Epic launcher put in. Open the Dolphin file explorer from the taskbar and hit the hamburger menu within the top-right nook to allow “Present Hidden Information.” Now navigate by the next path:
House / .native / share / Steam / steamapps / compatdata
You probably have a bunch of video games put in, you will see a bundle of folders right here with ID numbers that correspond to them. Hiding in one in all these folders is your Epic Video games executable. If you have not added another non-Steam video games, it ought to be fairly simple to search out: the folder can be a a lot bigger quantity than any official Steam video games. Begin with the best numbered folder and preserve opening the “pfx/drive_c/Program Information (x86)” folders inside till you discover the one which accommodates Epic Video games. Whenever you do, navigate to this path:
House / .native / share / Steam / steamapps / compatdata / [big folder number] / pfx / drive_c / Program Information (x86) / Epic Video games / Launcher / Portal / Binaries / Win64
Discover the EpicGames Launcher.exe on the backside of the folder. Proper-click > Copy Location.
8. Again in Steam, right-click the Epic installer entry in your library and go to Properties > Shortcut. Right here you are going to spotlight the Goal discipline, right-click, and hit Paste. Then use the keyboard (Steam+X) to re-add the citation marks initially and finish.
Do the identical for the “Begin In” discipline, however delete EpicGamesLauncher.exe from the tip, as a result of we’re simply telling Steam which folder to look in, right here. Bear in mind to maintain the citation marks initially and finish. (Should you discover copy/pasting too fiddly on the Steam Deck’s trackpads, use can use the Browse choice right here as an alternative to navigate to the folder.
9. Rename your shortcut from EpicInstaller-[numbers].msi to one thing nicer. I simply did “Epic Video games.” (You can too add an icon, however it will not present up within the SteamOS UI.)
10. Setup full! (Properly, largely). Click on the “Return to Gaming Mode” icon on the desktop besides again into SteamOS.
11. Again in SteamOS, open your library and tab over to the Non-Steam video games part, which ought to make your new Epic library simple to search out. Choose it, then click on the controller icon to setup your controls. I like to recommend choosing the “Gamepad with Mouse Trackpad” template, enabling the again grip buttons, and setting two grips to left/proper click on. That method you’ll be able to nonetheless use the controller buttons as regular, whereas utilizing the trackpad and grip buttons to navigate the Epic launcher UI.
12. Boot up the launcher and login to your account. It’s kind of gradual to load, so give it a minute or so. As soon as it is loaded, click on your profile icon within the top-right nook and open Settings. Disable the next:
- Run When My Pc Begins
- Present Free Sport Notifications
- Present Information and Particular Gives Notifications
Disabling these notifications will make the UI a bit extra manageable.
It is nonetheless sluggish, however you are now free to put in video games and run them out of your launcher inside a launcher. Simply do not count on every thing to magically work: video games with unsupported anti-cheat are nonetheless a no-go, and compatibility is probably not in place for each sport you attempt by way of the Epic launcher.
In time there will certainly be higher methods to play your Epic video games: the third-party Heroic launcher is planning Flatpak assist, which might make it just as easy to install on the Steam Deck as emulators. There’s additionally Lutris, which had points with the Steam Deck after I first tried it, however is certain to get higher over time. For now, although, merely including the Home windows launcher to Steam is the best and cleanest answer.
