How to Install and Play Epic Games on a Steam Deck

17.04.2024 - 21:21 / howtogeek.com

The Steam Deck is a great handheld gaming PC, but its focus on Steam means no native support for playing games from other launchers, including the Epic Games Launcher. But you can play games from Epic's store on your Steam Deck if you use these workarounds.

Playing Epic Games Store Games on Your Steam Deck

Before I show you how to download and play Epic Games Launcher games on your Steam Deck, let me showcase your options for downloading and playing said games.

The oldest and the most intricate app to use is Lutris. This is a tool that allows users to install and play a ton of different games from different stores and game launchers. However, the catch is that many games have specific installation procedures, making Lutris less than ideal for Steam Deck owners who don’t want to spend a lot of time learning how to use it and are just looking for a relatively simple way to play games from other launchers.

Next, we have the NonSteamLaunchers app, which is quite straightforward to use. The catch here is that you can only add different launcher shortcuts to Game Mode, not individual games.

Finally, we have the Heroic Games Launcher. I’ve been using it personally to play EGS and GOG games ever since I got my Deck, and can confirm that it works well and is simple to use. The UI is more geared towards navigating around with a mouse, but the Deck’s trackpads do a fine job navigating around Heroic.

I recommend Heroic because you can add specific games to Game Mode, or you can add the Heroic shortcut to Game Mode and launch games directly from the app. Also, the app’s simple to set up, and it works rather well. On the flip side, there are still some bugs, but the recent updates have squashed most of them.

In this guide, I’ll cover NonSteamLaunchers and the Heroic launcher, but not Lutris. Let's get started.

How to Install Heroic Games Launcher on Your Steam Deck

The first thing you want to do is boot into Desktop Mode by hitting the Steam button then navigating to Power > Switch to Desktop.

Once in Desktop Mode, open the Discover store, type “Heroic” and press Enter on the keyboard. You can pull up the virtual keyboard by pressing the X button. Once you get the results, click the “Install” button located in the same location as the “Remove” button in the screenshot below.

That’s it! It’s time to log in to the Epic Games Store and download some games.

How to Download Epic Games Store Games Using Heroic

Now, find the Heroic icon on your desktop and double-click it to enter the launcher.

Once you open Heroic, you should have a tab that reads “Log In” above the “Library” tab. Click on it and sign in with your Epic Games Store account. If you have Two-factor authentication enabled, the