Want to know how to play Fortnite on a Steam deck? Well, here’s a guide for exactly that purpose, but it’s a little more complicated than you think.
Everyone should say thank you to the bus driver, because the road we’re on to make Fortnite work on the Steam Deck is quite long. Needless to say, Valve and Epic definitely don’t interact well with each other, and you can’t play the game on SteamOS natively.
Epic and Valve are in a low-key relationship with each other. Both are mega-giants in the PC gaming business, and Tim Sweeney’s company constantly points to Valve’s monopoly in the market. While Sweeney has had issues with Windows in the past, Epic Games has yet to fully embrace Linux as an alternative.
However, the Steam Deck is a stumbling block. This is a fairly open device on which you can play all kinds of games from different stores through Proton. However, getting a game like Fortnite to work on Proton is theoretically a simple task. But, since corporate policy is complicated, it is unlikely that we will see a native version of Steam Deck in the near future. Tim Sweeney himself spoke out, saying that cheating would become a problem if they moved the game to SteamOS.
We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
However, all is not lost. Thanks to the open nature of the Steam Deck, we have several ways to get around this Epic choice. It completely depends on whether you are willing to give up fidelity streaming or install Windows on your Steam deck.
How to Play Fortnite on Steam Deck using Windows
Fortnite — at the moment — cannot run on Linux. Proton, the translation layer for running Windows games on Linux, requires extra work to make it work with Epic’s anti-cheat solution. Since Fortnite is not configured to connect to Proton, the game will not work.
It’s easy to get around this, we just install Windows on the Steam Deck. As is the case with things like Modern Warfare 2 and Destiny 2.
On Windows, you will be playing the game at a low level, but judging by our testing and observations, the game works fine at 60 frames per second.
How to Stream Fortnite on Steam Deck
Other ways are using Xbox Cloud Gaming with Game Pass or Nvidia GeForce Now. For these two, you will need to use Microsoft Edge, which you can get from the app store in desktop mode.
1. Download Microsoft Edge
To switch to desktop mode, press the Steam button on the home screen. Go to Power, and then switch to desktop mode in the menu that appears.
Having done that, go to the Discover Store and find Microsoft Edge. It is in beta, but it works almost flawlessly.
We already have an Xbox Cloud Gaming guide, and the setup process for Nvida GeForce Now is pretty similar.
2. Add Edge to Steam and configure
After you have installed Edge, find it in the taskbar menu and right-click. Select “Add to Steam” and we can proceed with the setup. This allows us to play your chosen streaming service in game mode.
- Open Konsole and use the following code to grant Edge the correct permissions to overcome any security barriers.
- flatpak –user override –filesystem=/run/udev:ro com.microsoft.Edge
- Press Enter, and then close the Konsole.
- Log in to Steam and right-click Microsoft Edge.
- Select “Properties” and find “Startup Options”.
- Enter the following code:
- –window-size=1024.640 –force-device-scale-factor=1.25 –device-scale-factor=1.25 –kiosk “https://www.play.geforcenow.com “
Configuring Edge to work in kiosk mode when selected via our shortcut will cause it to switch to the demo state.
If you want Xbox Cloud Gaming and not Nvidia GeForce Now, you need to enter:
–kiosk “https://www.xbox.com/play ”
When you’re done, boot into game mode and your chosen streaming service should load, allowing you to play Fortnite on Steam Deck.
