How to Install Non-Steam Games on Steam Deck with Heroic Games Launcher

Heroic Games Launcher is another easy way to play your non-Steam games on the Steam Deck. It supports Epic Games, GOG and Amazon game libraries. You can also add games manually with some additional setup, similar to Lutris, but it’s a little less straightforward. Heroic is a great all-round option for managing your third-party games in one place. Once logged in to your accounts, you can browse your game libraries and install games in a few clicks. Not everything will run flawlessly out of the box, but Heroic has a range of settings you can tweak to get your game running.

Install Non-Steam games on Steam Deck with Heroic Games Launcher Guide

Disclaimer: If you don’t have Heroic Games Launcher installed, install it from the Discover store in desktop mode. You’ll also need ProtonUp-Qt to download some additional versions of Proton. Some work better than others, I typically stick to GE-Proton versions.

Below is a fairly basic guide. Some games won’t work and others might require additional steps to launch. But, it will serve as a general base for installing and playing games with Heroic Games Launcher on your Steam Deck.

Anyway, getting on with it…

1. Swap into Desktop Mode on your Steam Deck
2. Open Heroic from your application menu
3. You’ll start with an empty library and be prompted to login to your Epic Games, GOG or Amazon accounts. So, do exactly that.
4. Once logged in, your game library will populate
5. Before installing a game, head to ‘Settings’ in Heroic Games Launcher
6. Head to ‘General’ and toggle on ‘Add games to Steam Automatically’
   This is optional. But, I suggest toggling this on to avoid having to add your games to Steam manually after every install
7. Under ‘Game Defaults’, select a version of Proton to run your games with.
   This is also optional. But, I suggest doing this to avoid manually selecting a Proton version after every install
8. Select the game you would like to install and click, uh, install
9. Head back to Gaming mode and launch your game.

Please note, some games may take a little while to launch initially as they install required dependencies. It may also be worth launching your game once in desktop mode to ensure everything installs correctly.

---

Further Notes:
With third-party game method, make sure you check ProtonDB for any specific Proton versions or extra install steps for the game you’re trying to play.

Changing a Game Proton Version:

– Select your game in Heroic
– Click the ‘Settings’ icon in the top-right
– Under the ‘Wine’ tab, select a version of Proton from the drop-down menu

Game Controls:

Some games will detect the Steam Deck controller automatically, others won’t.
If your controls aren’t working:
– Launch the game and press the ‘Steam’ Button on your Steam Deck
– Select ‘Controller Settings’
Here, you can set your controls to whatever you like. The combinations are endless.

Other Heroic Tools & Settings

– In the game settings menu under the ‘Wine’ tab there are a number of settings you can toggle which may help your game run like Esync, Fsync and FSR Hack.

– The WineCFG button in the game settings menu allows you edit your Wine Configuration for the Wine Prefix created for this game. Here you can change the Windows version, add applications, add DLLs and mess with various settings that most users should probably leave alone.

– The WineTricks button in the game settings menu allows you to tweak and add various components to your game’s Wine prefix. This could be things like DirectX, C++ Runtimes or Visual Basic Runtimes as some basic examples. It can also change settings in your WineCFG and adjust registry entries among other things.