Want to play some Rockstar Games on Steam Deck, but you don’t have them on Steam – you can – follow along this guide

Hopefully we are done with launchers soon, all of them install same way on Steam Deck – but anyway – we are going to cover every one of them.

This one will be exactly the same as GOG Galaxy and EPIC, however -we will go through it. Maybe not in such details as with GOG, but all the steps will be here.

If you are missing something – please check my GOG Launcher install guide. There is also guide about installing and uninstalling games on GOG, so you may check that out also.

There are some things worth repeating:

Be aware that I cannot be responsible for any damage you do following this guide – be sure to have backups of your saves and games. I cannot take responsibility for any kind of damage!

Here is a resource on how to check if game is playable on Steam Deck. Not all games work with Steam Deck, and not all games work out of the box – so it is worth checking the status of game support for Steam Deck – especially if you are buying game, and doing it only for Steam Deck.

Quick help if you are really new to Steam Deck (things that you will need here)

How to get to Desktop Mode on Steam Deck

How to get on-screen keyboard on Steam Deck

How to navigate Desktop Mode with Steam Deck

Steam Deck File System Basic – How to navigate File Manager

For this guide I recommend you use keyboard and mouse – it is doable on Steam Deck, but it will be more comfortable with mouse and keyboard.

What is the reason I should have launcher installed?

Mainly cloud saves and game updates.

Preparing Installation

On Rockstar Games Social Club site – https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/rockstar-games-launcher on the main screen there is a button on the middle of the page that says – Download for Windows

Press it and let the download finish. By default downloaded installer will be in Downloads folder.

Preparing Steam Client

We now need to add downloaded Rockstar-Games-Launcher.exe to the Steam Client – so we can start installation.

Press ADD A GAME at the bottom left of the Steam Client – click on Add a Non-Steam Game… | Press BROWSE… | Under File Type: select All Files | Navigate to the folder where Rockstar-Games-Launcher.exe is, select it and press OPEN

Rockstar-Games-Launcher.exe should be selected | Press ADD SELECTED PROGRAMS

Now Rockstar-Games-Launcher.exe is in Steam Client | Press Manage (little cog icon) and select Properties

Under SHORTCUT sidebar menu, we now won’t touch anything – we will later return here, but we will now leave it as it is. Only option under SHORTCUT sidebar menu you will wish to change is LAUNCH OPTIONS – if you want to install this on MicroSD, you will need the command below.

STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/ %command%

I will leave that empty, since I will install on my main drive inside Steam Deck.

Under COMPATIBILITY sidebar menu, we will select “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool” and will select latest Proton. Proton helps us run Windows software in Linux.

Close the window when you are done.

Installation

Now, after we are done with configuration, we will start installation of Launcher by pressing Play.

Be patient after you press Play

Select a language and click on Continue

Continue

I accept | Continue

Continue

Deselect “Run Rockstar Games Launcher on close” and press Close

We now need to change our Steam Client shortcut from installer to program executable.

First we are going to our File Manager – we need to navigate to our Compatdata folder (see links for the File Manager at the beginning if you are not familiar with term).

Last Folder I created was 4 minutes ago – that is my Rockstar Games Launcher install

Navigate to Rockstar Games (can be seen in screenshot) – select Launcher.exe and right click on it – select “Copy Location”

We will now again go back to our Steam Client “Rockstar-Games-Launcher.exe” item and again press Manage (little cog icon) and select Properties

On SHORTCUT sidebar menu, select Browse – in “File name” by pressing Control + V on the keyboard (right click with mouse won’t work, it’s a bug) paste the path you copied earlier. Under “File type” select All Files – click on OPEN

I will also change name of the shortcut to “Rockstar Games Launcher” and check that target has full path (including) Launcher.exe. Start in should only have full path, without exe.

COMPATIBILITY sidebar menu should be left as we initially set it – with Proton enabled.

This is optional and will give you mouse access in app interface- Before we run our app, we can do one more thing- right click on your app shortcut in steam library – select Manage | click on Controller layout (you can do this, are you can select some other type on controller layout)

Under current layout click on little triangle and select – Gamepad with Mouse Trackpad

Exit and continue starting your app

If you wish to make your Launcher prettier, look at this guide

Let’s press Play (and be patient, press only once)

… a little bit of updating and installing prerequisites

and a sign-in screen

Works

Launcher also starts in Gaming Mode (and asks for login) – buttons don’t work – only touchscreen does (at least in my case)

That is it for this one, I covered process of games installs and uninstalls in my other guides, you can check them out to see if you want to familiarize yourself with the process.

All games you download and install should be inside the folder you installed Rockstar Games Launcher.