How to run PlayStation Plus games on your Steam Deck

As you know, in recent months new machines with the appearance of a portable console have appeared that allow us to play with some of the best-known cloud platforms, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, Luna (at the moment in the US) or GeForce NOW. . If these alternatives do not work for you, we have good news for those who have purchased a Steam Deck since PlayStation Plus, the service revamped by Sony with hundreds of titles from the original PlayStation, PSP, PS2, PS3 and PS4, may be part of of their libraries.

run PlayStation Plus games on your Steam Deck

What part of PlayStation Plus can we use?

If you remember, in the new service launched last June, PS4 and PS5 owners had the option to play hundreds of classic titles from practically all generations of Sony machines. Far are those titles that cannot be run remotely through cloud gaming , so there are some PS4 hits that are left out for now. However, that will not prevent us from having some well-known ones like The Last of Us Remaster , Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (and others like Origins , etc.), Heavy Rain , various Ratchet & Clank , Yakuzas , etc.

To access all this we will have to use the official PC application, in addition to having a Premium or Extra subscription, which we will execute in the same way as on a normal Windows computer. But of course, since we have Steam OS here we are going to have to resort to the Proton layer to make it compatible . That is why (within the Steam Deck desktop mode), you will have to have the ProtonUp-Qt application in the system. Once installed, find and install inside it (add) the version:

  • Proton-6.21-GE-2

The next thing is to download (and unzip) the official PlayStation Plus application that you can easily find by doing a Google search of the type “PlayStation Plus on Steam Deck” (we recommend a specific video from the TTconT channel, which has a link in the description to download the software that we have used).

Steam Deck PlayStation Plus.

Install PlayStation Plus on Steam

Now, with the application downloaded, it’s time to put it into the system so we do the following. Always within the Steam Deck desktop mode.

  • Open the Steam window and go to the Library tab.
  • Click on the bottom left on the Add a Product button.
  • Now select the option to Add a non-Steam product .
  • Navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the PlayStation Plus app (it will usually be under Downloads ).
  • In the PlayStation Plus directory select the executable psnowlauncher.exe .

Once you have everything created, and before running the application, we must do a couple of things. The first is to enter and choose the configuration by clicking on the gear.

Steam Deck PlayStation Plus.

Now, with the window open, we go to the Compatibility tab and, once the options appear on the right, we select the same ones that you can see on the screen just below. On the one hand we activate the box to Force the use of a specific compatibility tool for Steam Play .

Steam Deck PlayStation Plus.

When doing the above, we will see a list at the bottom where we have to choose the version of Proton that we indicated before , that is, the Proton-6.21-GE-2 . Now, all that remains is to close the windows and launch PlayStation Plus on the Steam Deck after signing in with your Sony account.