Gaming on Steam

Google is in the process of releasing Steam for several newer ChromeOS Devices starting with ChromeOS M110, which will allow you to play PC and Console quality games on supported devices. Steam offers thousands of high-quality games, and you can access your existing Steam library on your ChromeOS Device so there is no need to re-purchase your games. It is technically possible to install Steam on Linux within the ChromeOS Linux environment, but this method is not officially recommended by Google and may lack the ability to properly use the systems' graphics card to its fullest potential.

If you are using a managed ChromeOS device issued by an employer or educational institute, you will not be able to leverage this feature at this time.

Unlike other methods of playing games on Steam such as Nvidia GeForce Now or Amazon Luna, Steam games are locally installed on your device and as such the games will consume a large amount of the available storage on your ChromeOS Powered device. It is currently unknown if it will be officially possible to install game libraries to an external storage device, such as a USB hard drive or Micro SD Card.

Steam will work best when playing games that were designed to run on Linux however thanks to the joint efforts from the developers of Steam (Valve) and WineHQ a powerful compatibility layer known as Proton was created to allow several games that were only designed for Windows to run on your device, however 100% compatibility is not guaranteed. The performance of Steam games on ChromeOS will vary based on a number of factors, including the specifications of your ChromeOS Device.