Steam Deck is one of the best and most powerful handheld gaming consoles out there right now, that's capable of playing more than just the games in your Steam library. That's right, you can even add non-Steam games to your library and play them on your Steam Deck. Heck, you can even use Sony's Remote Play feature to run PlayStation games on your Steam Deck and play them from anywhere in your home. If you have both a PlayStation 5 and a Steam Deck and are wondering how to play your PS5 games on Valve's handheld, then you've come to the right place.
Steam Deck OLED review: More than just a screen upgrade
The Steam Deck OLED dropped by surprise recently, and it's a fantastic handheld that's more than just a screen upgrade.
How to play PS5 games on your Steam Deck using Remote Play
Sony's official Remote Play app that you can download and use on a variety of platforms, including Windows, isn't available for Steam, at least not at the time of writing this guide. That being said, you can still remotely play your PS5 games on the Steam Deck with a third-party, open-source alternative client called Chiaki. Setting up Chiaki involves performing some crucial steps on both consoles, so let's get to them one after the other.
How to enable remote play on the PlayStation 5
To enable remote play on the PS5:
1. Head to the Settings page on your PS5.
2. Select System, and then go to Remote Play.
3. Flip the Enable Remote Play toggle.
4. Next, click Link device to reveal an 8-digit number that you'll need later in this guide. You can revisit this page when the 300-second timer runs out to generate another code.
That should enable remote play on your PlayStation 5 console, meaning it's ready to be linked to an external device on the same network for remote play.
How to set up PS5 remote play on Steam Deck
It's now time to pick up your Steam Deck and do some tinkering to get PS5 remote play working on it. This will need some work as Sony's official Remote Play App isn't available on Steam. As such, we'll using a third-party alternative client called Chiaki to set up remote play on the Steam Deck. To do it:
You might want to grab a mouse and keyboard to perform the steps below.
1. Connect your Steam Deck to the same network as your PS5.
2. Switch to the Desktop mode on the Steam Deck.
3. Click the Discover icon on the taskbar.
4. Search for Chiaki, which is our preferred client for this particular guide, and install it.
5. Select the Steam Deck icon at the bottom-left, and open a web browser.
7. Open a new tab, and head to this link: https://trinket.io/embed/python3/52183a157e?outputOnly=true&runOption=run&start=result&showInstructions=true.
8. The trinket page will instruct you to open a URL, so select and open it in a new tab while keeping the trinket tab running.
9. Login to your PlayStation username and password on the new tab, and simply copy the URL of the new page that opens with the text that reads "redirect."
10. Go back to the tab with the trinket page open, and paste the copied URL.
11. The trinket page will run a script and generate an Account ID on the last line. Copy this as you'll need it for registering your PS5 on Chiaki.
12. Now open Chiaki on your Steam Deck, and click on the detected PS5 icon to enter the registration process.
13. Paste the Account ID you copied from Step 11 into the field with PSN Account-ID (base64).
14. Also, paste the 8-digit PIN you fetched from your PS5's Settings page earlier. This particular PIN is temporary and constantly refreshing, so you may need to get a new one if it expires.
15. Select Register and wait for it to complete.
If you followed all the steps highlighted above, then you've successfully registered and enabled PS5 Remote Play on your Steam Deck using Chiaki. You now have to add Chiaki to your library as a non-Steam game in order to run it directly via the Game Mode. To do that:
How to add custom artwork to your Steam library games
Organize your game listings and keep your library in tip-top shape.
1. Open the Steam app in Desktop mode.
2. Click Add a Game on the bottom left of the app.
3. Select Add a non-Steam game.
4. Select Chiaki, and add it.
And that's it! You can now restart your Steam Deck in the Gaming Mode to find Chiaki added to your library. You can launch it directly from there to play your PS5 games remotely on your Steam Deck.
Playing your favorite PS5 games on Steam Deck is fairly simple
The fact there is no official Sony Remote Play client for the Steam Deck is definitely a bummer, but the alternative clients like Chiaki work very well. I personally use Chiaki to play my PS5 games on my Steam Deck when I am away from my TV or when it's being used by someone else, and it's pretty reliable and works very well. You may have to connect your PS5 to your router via an Ethernet cable to ensure there are connectivity issues while streaming, so keep that in mind.