Adding Non-Steam Games to Your Steam Deck Using Heroic Games Launcher

Valve’s Steam Deck—remember that? Anyway, it kinda made a splash when it first came out. Those ripples might’ve calmed a bit since then. Probably ‘cause everyone’s jumping into the handheld game pool now. Still, the Steam Deck’s like, the OG for handheld gaming trust me. Here’s the catch: it’s just for Steam games, right?

Nah, that ain’t it.

Turns out you can throw a whole bunch more games onto this thing, but yeah, you might need to roll up your sleeves a bit. Enter the Heroic Games Launcher. And, oh man, I used this on a Linux project once—trust me, it’s a game-changer. Imagine all those GoG, Amazon, and Epic libraries of games you snagged for free but never played (seriously, everyone does this, right?)—now they’re all at your fingertips. Perfect for those bed-gaming sessions or when you’re crammed on a subway.

And okay, let me be real for a second—playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on this thing, through the Heroic Games Launcher, felt downright nostalgic.

What’s My Mission? My goal: to slide Heroic into my Steam Library so I can chill with a game on the sofa whenever. Here’s the drill:

First off, gotta get Heroic on the Deck. Start by hitting that Steam button, shuffle onto the desktop mode—desktop, what a throwback!

Grab Discover next, the app store or whatever. It’s the fourth icon, if you care. Search for Heroic there.

Once you find it, tap on install, and uh, maybe grab a snack while it does its thing. Then dive back into Heroic—find it under Games. Dismiss those update pop-ups, they’re just bragging about fixes I never notice.

Next, let’s get our game accounts set up. Epic games first for me, ‘cause TMNT is calling. You can slap in other libraries too—there’s a Stores link on the side for that.

Choose your game, twiddle with settings, and pick Proton Experimental. I think it runs cool, barring the occasional bug. Trust me, when Shredder’s Revenge loaded in no time, it was bliss. Cyberpunk though? Yeah, that test was a whopping 40-minute ordeal. No joke.

Alright, game installed, now for the fun part: playing. Quick shoutout to Deathloop here—playing it was neat, save for some weird capture device antics with screen resolutions. Apart from that, smooth sailing.

But wait, the heroism continues! Why stop with Heroic installed? Let’s make it a Steam library buddy.

Find Heroic among the Steam desktop entries, right-click it, and add it to Steam. Boom, now it’s a part of the crew.

Want to make it look all snazzy with its own art? Let’s hit up steamgriddb, a goldmine for free images. Pick some art, download it, make sure it’s got a name you won’t forget.

Up next, it’s time to tweak in the desktop Steam. Right-click the Heroic entry for custom art. Repeat for the background and logo if you’re a detail nut like me. It’s like dressing the app up for a party.

And hey, when you’re all decked out, double-click “Return to Gaming Mode”—back to the familiar embrace of Steam’s usual interface you go.

Now, anytime you fire up your Steam Deck, the Heroic Games Launcher is waiting. It’s like a little ‘press me, play more’ gift. Go on, dive in—but maybe remember to eat something and stretch once in a while, yeah?