New Steam Deck Project Enables Native Xbox PC Game Support, Though With Some Limitations

Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Ever since the Steam Deck first released back in 2022, there have been calls for Xbox and Valve to team up on native Xbox / PC Game Pass support, but it’s unfortunately never happened to any major extent.

Until now, the only way to access Xbox Game Pass titles through the Steam Deck has been through Xbox Cloud Gaming, adding Windows to the device, or using alternative launchers to access the likes of Activision and EA titles.

However, a new unofficial project known as Xodus Nexus has taken this one step further, serving as an open-source launcher that allows you to natively run a whole bunch of Xbox Game Pass titles directly on your Steam Deck. It also goes one step further and allows you to run your Xbox Play Anywhere and other Xbox PC titles too.

At first glance, this looks extremely cool and very much a game-changer for anyone wanting to play Xbox PC titles on their Steam Deck, but there are also multiple catches you need to be aware of.

For example, only certain games actually work with Xodus Nexus right now, and only partially in some cases. The likes of Gears of War: E-Day and Minecraft Dungeons 2 are said to function without any major issues, but others such as ARC Raiders and The Witcher 3 apparently don’t work at all.

People have speculated that these games probably aren’t performing as well as they would through Steam (or on a dedicated device such as the ROG Xbox Ally) as well, so it’s certainly not a perfect solution by any means. Still, this is the closest we’ve been in four years to actual native Xbox Game Pass and Xbox PC games on the Steam Deck.

As with any unofficial project, we only recommend trying this at your own risk, and you can find more details over on the Xodus Nexus Github page. Here’s hoping we’ll one day get official Steam Deck support for the Xbox PC app too!

Have you managed to get Xbox PC games running on your Steam Deck before? Tell us in the comments.