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Epic Games Store on Steam Deck

EGS (Epic Games Store) like it or hate it, has been giving away free games and if you like free games you would have picked up atleast a couple of them. So given that some of those games are Deck Verified / Playable, its fair to assume you would like to install the EGS on the Deck. 

Installing EGS on Steam Deck

    
  • Open Steam in the desktop mode and add the installer as a non-steam game

     

                        

  • In the browse window, switch from .desktop files to All files.
  • Select EpicInstaller-xxx.msi and add it to steam library.
  • Find EpicInstaller in your steam library and open its' properties by hitting the "Gear" icon on the right side of game details page.
  • Set the proton compatibility to latest one.
  • Now hit the play button and go through the install screens of EGS. 
  • Once the installation process is complete, open Dolphin file manager and search for EpicGamesLauncher.exe under /home/deck/.steam directory.
    Typically you should find it under some path like this. 
    • /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Epic Games/Launcher/Portal/Binaries/Win32/
    • /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Epic Games/Launcher/Portal/Binaries/Win64/
  • Note that the highlighted number will be different on your device. You need to make sure you copy this path and save it for future ref. 
  • Note down the compat path for EGS on your system. In this example it is 
    • /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917
  • Open steam again and open the properties of the EpicInstaller again. We don't need this now and can modify it to point to the EGS Launcher  
  • You can see that there is additional launch options added to the shortcut it is for providing EGS access to the miro sd card if you have it setup. 
    • STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/ %command%
  • Please note that "mmcblk0p1" could be different on your steam deck please check the /run/media directory.  

Installing Games from EGS 

You can find Epic Games in your library and hit play. This will launch the EGS and will prompt you to login to the service. If you have done the step of adding the microsd card to the compat mounts you should be able to find and install the games on microsd card directly from the EGS. 

Adding EGS Games to Steam Library 

If you want to start seeing the games from EGS in the steam library when in game mode you will need to add shortcuts to those games. This can be done manually for each game or you could use tool like BoilR to do it for all games at once. 

If you want to do it manually, just to know how this works.. i wanted to.. so here goes 

  • Note the compat folder for your epic games launcher mine was: /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917/
  • Add the EpicGamesLauncher.exe again just like you did for the launcher before
  • Don't forget to force compatibility with the latest Proton Version. 
  • Find the .item file for the game you want to add from EGS to the steam library under the following directory: /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917/pfx/drive_c/ProgramData/Epic/EpicGamesLauncher/Data/Manifests
    • This folder will have a bunch of files with extension .item 
    • These are json files. You can open them in kwrite editor. 
    • Find the one that corresponds to the game you want to add to steam library. 
    • Form a url that looks like this: com.epicgames.launcher://apps/{CatalogNamespace}%3A{CatalogItemId}%3A{AppName}?action=launch&silent=true
    • You need to pick the CatalogNamespace, CatalogItemId and AppName values from the .item file and replace them in the string shown above. 
  • Now add the launch Options to the short cut to launch the game correctl
    • STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="path to compat directory of egs" 
    • %command% 
    • app launch url that you formed for the game in previous step. 
         
  • STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/3066684917" %command% 'com.epicgames.launcher://apps/253d451b16364a22907dd01b7e928fb6%3A54ff4322184a4c3086ee6da0a2d20f79%3Abb406082b69a47208489d3616b22b5c2?action=launch&silent=true' 
    • Please note that the path i used for compat data will be different on every steam deck. You will have to find the one on your Steam Deck and use that here instead of the one shown here.
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Comments

whenthedanceisthrough said…
Just wondering, is there any advantage to doing this ".item" thing versus just linking directly to the game's EXE after installing it?
12:22 PM
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