Steam Decknews followers may recall Epic Games deciding against makingFortnitecompatible with the Deck,citing cheating concernsdespite simultaneously making sure its own Easy Anti-Cheat systemcouldwork on the handheld. That hasn’t changed, but there is now at least one legit way to play the crossover-happy battle royale on the Steam Deck, as it’s just launched on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
I can’t say I’m as enamoured with Fortnite asEd now is, but since I already had Xbox Cloud Gaming set up on one of my Steam Deck, I had no technical problems using it to link my Epic account and drop into a couple of matches. It all seems to work fine, even the Deck’s right trackpad as an aiming alternative to the right thumbstick, and maintains a solid 55fps.
Some Xbox cloud games I’ve tried on the Deck haven’t worked as well, with fun-spoiling issues like audio desync and looping launch failures, so praise be there’s nothing like that here. Only the mildest cloud streaming caveats apply, like the game running at 720p with black bars (the Steam Deck has a taller 800p screen), though on my 5GHz Wi-Fi connection there’s very little visual degradation. Results may vary if you try streaming over a ropey connection.
But yeah, Fortnite. Steam Deck. It’s there if you want it, and if you haven’t set up Xbox Cloud Gaming on your Steam Deck, have a read ofour guide.
