One of the smaller, yet still important and very awesome announcements that NVIDIA rolled out at CES 2025 at its big event was, at long last, official, full support for the Steam Deck with GeForce Now.
Playing from NVIDIA's cloud hasn't ever been impossible on the Steam Deck, not least because it has a version that plays through a web browser. There has also been an unofficial 'app' for a while on Linux that is, essentially, a wrapper around that web app.
But now, in 2025, NVIDIA is promising a "native" app for the Steam Deck.
"Announced today at the CES trade show, gamers will soon be able to play titles from their Steam library at GeForce RTX quality with the launch of a native GeForce NOW app for the Steam Deck. NVIDIA is working to bring cloud gaming to the popular PC gaming handheld device later this year."
NVIDIA has also, in the past, helped players get GeForce Now's web version up and running easily on the Deck with a handy script, but this goes much further. By "native app" we'd assume that they're building a Linux version of the client currently available on Windows and Mac. You would also assume that it'll be a seamless experience to run from the gaming mode.
If you spring for the top tier of GeForce Now, that means if you hook up your Steam Deck to an external display you'll be able to play at up to 4K resolution, high frame rates, and make use of HDR and ray tracing. Settings you simply cannot achieve natively on the Steam Deck. And of course, all those games you can't play on the Deck thanks to anticheat incompatibilities, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, will all benefit.
What NVIDIA hasn't said is exactly when this app is coming, beyond later in 2025. But the wait will be worth it, and I'm looking forward to checking it out when it arrives.
