Is Fortnite Steam Deck compatible?

To make sure you don't run into issues playing Fornite on the Steam Deck, we have low-down on the F2P game's compatibility and setup.

An image of Jonsey from Fortnite on the screen of a Steam Deck.
Rosalie Newcombe's Avatar

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Fortnite PC games hardware Steam Deck 

Is Fortnite Steam Deck compatible? Playing Fortnite on the Steam Deck involves going through a series of elaborate steps, which can be as frustrating as securing that precious victory royale. However, once set-up, playing Fortnite on the go is a great way to blast your way through the recent battle pass, and play online with friends.

The Fortnite system requirements call for 30GB worth of install space before you can get to flossing your way to victory. Picking up one of the best microSD cards for Steam Deck will ensure you have plenty of space on your handheld, especially if you aren’t sporting the new 1TB Steam Deck OLED model.

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Is Fortnite Steam Deck compatible?

Yes, Fortnite is playable on the Steam Deck. However, due to its absence on the Steam platform, and the inclusion of anti-cheat technology, you have to stream Xbox Cloud Gaming via Game Pass to run the game.
Here’s how to play Fortnite on Steam Deck:

  • Switch to Desktop mode
  • Navigate to Discover
  • Search and download ‘Microsoft Edge’
  • Navigate to ‘All Applications’
  • Right-click Microsoft Edge
  • Select ‘add to Steam’
  • Open ‘Konsole’ from the Applications menu
  • Input: – flatpak –user override –filesystem=/run/udev:ro com.microsoft.Edge
  • Switch to Gaming Mode
  • Navigate to ‘Microsoft Edge’
  • Select ‘Properties’
  • Under ‘Launch Options, input the following text at the end, ensuring to use a space in between:  –window-size=1024,640 –force-device-scale-factor=1.25 –device-scale-factor=1.25 –kiosk “https://www.xbox.com/play”
  • Launch Microsoft Edge
  • Download Fortnite

There are a few methods to get around the game’s inclusion of anti-easy cheat technology, including downloading Windows on the Steam Deck. However, for this guide, we’ve gone with streaming Fortnite through the use of Xbox Cloud Gaming via Xbox PC Game Pass. Due to the nature of streaming, and being an online battle royale, you still need to ensure you have a stable enough internet connection to maintain the best possible performance.

As of writing this guide, Fortnite is still not available natively on the Steam Platform. Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney shared on Twitter (X), that the developers aren’t confident they could manage to cope with all the possible cheating that could occur if the game was available on Steam.

If you own one of the best Steam Deck docks, while in Desktop mode you can connect gaming mouse and keyboard via USB. Navigating the Steam Deck’s menus in this mode is much easier using peripherals, but you can also use the Steam Deck keyboard in desktop mode.

The frustrating setup prevents Fortnite from being one of the best Steam Deck games, but we still have a ton of recommendations on our list, including some other co-op picks that you can play online with your friends. If you already have plenty to play on the go, picking up one of the best Steam Deck accessories will help unlock the full potential of your favorite PC gaming handheld.

Rosalie is a hardware staff writer for PCGamesN, based in Scotland. After writing about the development of adaptive game audio at the end of their music degree, Rosalie was inspired to pursue a career in journalism. They took their love of video games, and the hardware they run on, to write for sites like TechRadar and GameByte, until landing a full time role with the team at PCGamesN. When not gazing upon their ever-growing anime figure, and physical game collection, you can find Rosalie writing about everything to do with Steam Deck, as well as catching up with the latest AMD and Nvidia news.