DroidDeck is basically SteamOS on Android without SteamOS

There’s no shortage of PC gaming apps on Android, allowing you to play computer games without streaming. Popular apps include GameNative, Winlator and its forks, and GameHub. We can now add DroidDeck to the list, and it takes a different approach.

DroidDeck is a PC gaming app for Android that aims to copy the Steam OS look and feel. Much like rival apps, DroidDeck lets you sign into your Steam library and install these games on your Android device. This new app takes things a step further by offering the Steam client in Big Picture mode, complete with the Quick-Access Menu. The app even supports Steam OS features like a desktop mode, Decky plugins, and Linux apps via FlatPaks and AppImages.

Recent updates have also brought features like Android home screen shortcuts for games, dual-screen support, automatic application of the best GPU drivers for your device, and a comprehensive performance overlay.

Getting started with DroidDeck

The installation process is straightforward for the most part, as you navigate to a setup tab. This tab lets you see whether your GPU is verified, install the Linux runtime, and more. From here, you can sign into Steam via the main tab.

The only major setup-related downside is that it requires you to toggle the “disable child-process limit” feature in developer options. This is all well and good, but devices running Android 12 or 13 don’t have this option, which means you have to take the finicky wireless ADB route. The wireless ADB approach will no doubt be a little too complex for some gamers. Thankfully, my Retroid Pocket G2 runs Android 15, so I could turn on the “disable child-process limit” feature just fine.

DroidDeck does have some stringent requirements at the moment, too. You’ll need a Snapdragon-powered device with an Adreno 700 series GPU or higher. That rules out many devices with budget or mid-range Snapdragon processors, let alone devices powered by MediaTek, Exynos, or Tensor silicon. However, the high-end Snapdragon GPU requirement isn’t a hard restriction.

I briefly tried DroidDeck on my Retroid Pocket G2 and found the UI to be very familiar as a Steam Deck user. There was some performance stutter in the UI, though, ostensibly due to the mid-tier Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 chip. I also found that my handheld’s fan ran at a high speed before I even started a game. Additionally, I noticed that the app quickly chewed through my device storage, accounting for 12GB of space after installing only one sub-1GB game, one or two Proton layers, and the desktop mode files. So there’s understandably some optimization work to be done, which isn’t a surprise given the project’s early stage of development.

I only played a couple of games, namely Geometry Wars 3 and Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX. The former ran at playable speeds, while the latter was mostly playable but had a noticeably inconsistent frame rate. This is far from a comprehensive assessment, so your mileage might vary. Nevertheless, I’d still recommend keeping an app like GameNative installed on your device, as it’s more mature and will likely offer better performance and compatibility. But it’s impressive to see such an ambitious app on Android, and the update cadence so far suggests that we could see major strides down the line.