Can you play Zenless Zone Zero on the Steam Deck?

Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is the hot new game from Hoyoverse, and it is on course to become just as popular as the developer’s other hit titles Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. While the game is available on PC — as well as PlayStation and mobile — you won’t find it on Steam’s marketplace. Despite its absence from Steam’s game library, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t play it on Valve’s handheld PC. So, is Zenless Zone Zero playable on the Steam Deck? Here’s what you need to know.

Can you play Zenless Zone Zero on the Steam Deck?

The Steam Deck is somewhat at the mercy of the Steam marketplace for what games it can play. Zenless Zone Zero is solely on the Epic Games Store, so under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be possible. However, a number of workarounds have been found that make it possible to play Zenless Zone Zero on the device.

While some methods can be rather complicated, there are a couple of solutions that are pretty straightforward. In the section below, we’ll go over one of the easiest methods.

It’s worth pointing out that ZZZ is obviously not a Deck-verified game, so you may run into issues. However, the game tends to run fairly well despite that.

How to play Zenless Zone Zero on the Steam Deck

Installing Zenless Zone Zero on the Steam Deck isn’t too complicated, but does require a few more steps than installing games off of Steam. Before you get started, make sure you have enough space as the game has a file size of around 57GB. You’ll also want to make sure that you have an active Epic Games Store account.

With that out of the way, here’s what you need to do:

1. Switch to Desktop Mode by pressing and holding the power button and selecting “Switch to Desktop.”
2. Go into Steam and find and download the Heroic Games Launcher.
3. Start up the Heroic Games Launcher and link it to your Epic Games Store account.
4. Find Zenless Zone Zero in the launcher and download it.
5. The game should be added to your Steam collection automatically. If you don’t see it, go back to the launcher, remove the game from Steam, and try adding it again.
6. Open Zenless Zone Zero and select a file path to finish installing the game.
7. Launch Zenless Zone Zero.

*Keep in mind that when you launch ZZZ in Steam, it will always open Heroic Games Launcher first.

Now you should have ZZZ sitting in your library ready to be played whenever you want. As with any PC game, you’ll want to take a minute to explore your settings to maximize performance. It should run comfortably at 720p, but don’t be surprised if there are occasional drops.