How to Install GOG Galaxy on the Steam Deck

This tutorial will show you how to install the GoG Galaxy client to your Steam Deck.

Steam Deck GOG Galaxy

The GOG Galaxy store gives you access to numerous old games that will run perfectly on the Steam Deck’s hardware.

While the client doesn’t natively support Linux, we can get it to work thanks to Steam’s Proton compatibility layer.

The advantage of using Proton to run GOG is we can use the official client and not rely on a third-party one.

One big plus for games you buy from GOG is that they aren’t meant to contain any DRM. The lack of DRM makes the Steam Deck’s Proton compatibility layers job much easier as it doesn’t have to contend with the DRM functionality.

You can install this client on your Steam Deck alongside others such as Ubisoft Connect, EA App, Rockstar Games Launcher, and Battle.net.

By the end of the following section, you will have the GoG Galaxy client running on your Steam Deck in both desktop and gaming modes.

Installing and Setting up GOG Galaxy on the Steam Deck

Installing GOG Galaxy onto the Steam Deck isn’t complicated, but it takes several steps to complete.

Throughout these steps, we will show you how to change from gaming to desktop mode, download GOG, install it, and configure it to run.

You should give yourself a decent amount of time to complete these steps. While they aren’t difficult to follow, there are numerous steps.

Changing to Gaming Mode

1. To install GOG, you must change your Steam Deck to gaming mode.

To get to gaming mode, you must first open the Steam menu. You can open this menu by pressing the STEAM button on your Deck or clickingSTEAM Menu” in the bottom-left corner.

Open the STEAM Menu

2. With the Steam Menu up, you now must change to the “Power” menu.

This menu is where we can tell the Steam Deck we want to change to the desktop mode.

Change to the Power Menu

3. Now that you have the power menu up, click the “Switch to Desktop” option.

Swap to desktop mode

Downloading the GoG Galaxy Client to the Steam Deck

4. Once you are in the Steam Deck’s desktop mode, you must open your favourite web browser.

In our case, we will be using the Chrome web browser.

Open your favourite web browser

5. With the web browser open, we will need to use it to download the Gog Galaxy installer to our Steam Deck.

To download the client, go to the URL below. The installer should begin to download to your device immediately.

https://webinstallers.gog-statics.com/download/GOG_Galaxy_2.0.exe
Download GOG Galaxy Installer to the Steam Deck

Adding the GoG Galaxy Installer to the Steam Deck Library

6. To run the GoG Galaxy Installer on the Steam Deck, add it to your game library.

Without adding it to the library, we won’t be able to use the Proton compatibility layer to run it.

To start this process, you can open the Steam desktop client by double-clickingSteam” on the desktop.

Open the Desktop Version of Steam

7. With the Steam desktop client open, click the “Add a game” button (1.) in the bottom-left corner.

In the pop-up that appears, click the “Add a non-steam game” option (2.).

Open Add a Non Steam Game Dialog

8. In the prompt that appears, click the “Browse...” button in the bottom-left corner.

Browse to find GOG Galaxy Installer on the Steam Deck

9. Using the browse dialog, you must click the “Downloads” shortcut in the sidebar (1.).

You should now be in your download directory. Scroll and select the installer with the filename “GOG_Galaxy_2.0.exe” (2.).

With the installer selected, click the “Open” button (3.).

Browse to find GOG Galaxy Installer on the Steam Deck

10. You should now have the “GOG_Galaxy_2.0.exe” installer selected within this dialog (1.).

Once the installer is selected, click the “Add Selected Programs” button (2.).

Add GOG Galaxy to the Steam Deck Library

Forcing Proton Compatibility for GOG

11. Within your Steam library, use the search box to look for “gog” (1.).

You should eventually see an entry labeled “GOG_Galaxy_2.0.exe“, select it to continue (2.).

Search for GOG in your Steam Deck Library

12. Now that you have the GOG Galaxy entry open, click the “COG” icon (1.) on the left side of the screen.

Next, click the “Properties...” option (2.).

Open properties panel

13. With the properties screen open, start by changing to the “Compatibility” tab (1.).

You will then want to tick the checkbox next to “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool” (2.).

Once ticked, a select box should appear, which you will want to set to “Proton Experimental” (3.).

Force proton compatibility mode

Installing the GOG Galaxy Client to the Steam Deck

14. You can now begin installing GOG Galaxy to your Steam Deck by clicking the “PLAY” button.

Launch the GOG Galaxy Installer on the Steam Deck

15. Since we only downloaded the web installer earlier, the installer will automatically download the full version of the GOG Galaxy client.

GOG Client downloading

16. With the GOG Galaxy installer running on your Steam Deck, click the “Next” button to proceed with the installation.

If you find your mouse unresponsive during these installation steps, try holding down the STEAM Button as you move it.

Welcome to the GOG galaxy Setup Wizard

17. Before the installation proceeds, you must accept the license agreement (1.).

Once the license has been accepted, click the “Next” button (2.).

Accept License Agreement

18. The next screen asks you where you want GOG Galaxy to be installed on your Steam Deck.

Since GOG is being installed within a Proton directory, you will want to keep this to the default.

Continue with the installation process, click the “Next” button.

Continue with installer

19. You will be asked whether you want to create a desktop shortcut.

To continue installing the GOG Galaxy client on your Steam Deck, click the “Next” button.

Select additional tasks

20. Next, you will be prompted whether you want to “Launch GOG Galaxy“. Untick this option for now (1.).

Once you have unticked the launch option, click the “Finish” button (2.) to complete the installation process.

Finish installation of GOG Galaxy on your Steam Deck

Updating the GOG Galaxy Shortcut, Launch Target and Start in Directory

21. After installing GOG Galaxy to your Steam Deck, you must re-adjust its properties within Steam.

Click the cog icon on the left side (1.) of your Steam Library, then click the “Properties...” option (2.).

Open the Properties Screen

Changing the Shortcut

22. You will now want to change the shortcut name from “GOG_Galaxy_2.0.exe” to something like “GOG Galaxy“.

You can bring up the on-screen keyboard by pressing the STEAM and X buttons simultaneously.

Set shortcut name

Setting the Launch Target

23. With the shortcut name set on your Steam Deck, you will now need to select the launch target for GOG Galaxy.

Click the “Browse...” button next to “TARGET” to begin this process.

Browse to set the GOG Galaxy Launch Target for the Steam Deck

24. With the browse dialog open, click the “Home” option in the left-hand dialog to return to your user’s home directory.

Change to your home directory

25. Now that you are back in the home directory, you must enable hidden files. To do this, click the option icon in the top right corner (1.).

In the context menu that appears, click the “Show Hidden Files” option (2.).

Show hidden files

26. The first folder you will want to open is labeled “.local“.

Open the local directory

27. Next, browse to the “share” directory.

Change to the share folder

28. Within this folder, scroll through this directory till you see the folder labeled “Steam” and open it.

Swap to the steam folder

29. The next folder you are after will have the name “steamapps“.

Navigate to the steamapps folder

30. Finally, we can enter the directory where GOG Galaxy was installed on the Steam Deck.

Navigate into the “compatdata” directory. All applications being run under Proton are stored by default in this directory.

Open the compatdata folder

31. Before finding the directory GOG Galaxy is stored in, sort the folders by date by clicking the “Date” column.

After clicking the column header, the arrow should be pointing down. This indicates the list is sorted from newest to oldest.

Sort folders by date

32. Once you have the list sorted, open the directory at the top of the list. This directory should be where GOG Galaxy is installed on your Steam Deck.

Make a note of the name of the folder as you will need it later.

Open the Proton folder belonging to the Steam Deck

33. Next, navigate to the folder named “pfx“.

Change to the pfx directory

34. You will now want to swap to the “drive_c” directory. This folder represents Proton’s simulated C drive that the GOG Galaxy client will see.

Swap to the drive_c folder

35. Now that you are within the simulated c drive, move to the “Program Files (x86)” folder.

Navigate to the Program Fiels folder

36. We are finally almost at the correct place. Now find and navigate into the directory labeled “GOG Galaxy“.

Open the GOG Galaxy directory

37. Now that we are in the right place, scroll down until you see the file called “GalaxyClient.exe” and click it to select it (1.).

Once the GOG client is selected, we can set the Steam Deck to launch it by clicking the “Open” (2.) button.

Select the GalaxyClient Executable

Setting the START IN Directory

38. Depending on the version of Steam you are running, you will also need to set the “START IN” directory.

Not setting this directory can cause issues with GOG Galaxy running on your Steam Deck.

This uses a slightly different dialog, so the steps will differ from the previous section. You can begin the process by clicking the “Browse...” button.

Browse to set the START IN directory

39. Before using this dialog to select the “start in” directory, you must enable hidden folders.

You can do this by right-clicking (L2 on your Steam Deck) and selecting the “Show Hidden Folders” option.

Show Hidden folders

40. The first folder you will want to open while in this dialog is the “.local” directory.

Using the D-PAD can make navigating through these folders a very fast process.

Open the local hidden folder

41. Next, you must change into the “share” folder.

Navigate to the share folder

42. Once in the “share” directory, scroll down and open the “Steam” folder.

Swap to the Steam folder

43. The next directory you want to open is “steamapps“.

Change to the steamapps folder

44. Our next step is to navigate to the “compatdata” folder.

Navigate to the compactdata Proton folder for GOG Galaxy on the Steam Deck

45. At this point, you need to look for the Proton directory belonging to GOG Galaxy on your Steam Deck

You should know the name of this directory from setting the launch target.

Select the Proton Directory for GOG Galaxy on the Steam Deck

46. Now open up the directory labeled “pfx“.

Open the pfx folder

47. Swap to the directory named “drive_c“.

Change to the drive_c directory

48. Change to the “Program Files (x86)” folder.

Navigate to the x86 program files folder

49. Now, you can select the “GOG Galaxy” directory (1.).

Once the directory is selected, you can click the “OK” button (2.).

Choose the GOG Galaxy Folder as START IN

Ensure Target and Start In Directories has Double Quotes

50. Before you proceed any further, you must ensure that both the “TARGET” and “START IN” fields start and end with a double quote (").

If these are missing, the GOG Galaxy client may not launch on your Steam Deck.

Fix missing double quotes

Creating a Folder to Store your GOG Games on the Steam Deck

51. This section will use the Dolphin file explorer to create a directory to store your GOG Games on the Steam Deck.

While you could store your games in GOG’s Proton directory, this isn’t recommended, as if you delete GOG Galaxy, you will also lose your games.

To create this directory, open the Dolphin file explorer from the desktop.

Open the Dolphin file explorer

52. Once the file explorer is open, right-click using the L1 trigger and then hover over the “Create New” option (1.).

After hovering over this option, a list will appear. Click the “Folder...” option (2.) to begin creating a new folder.

Create new folder to store GOG Games on the Steam Deck

53. You can now name your new folder (1.). In our example, we will be calling the folder “GoG Games“.

Once you have named the folder, click the “OK” button (2.).

Enter new folder name

54. With the folder created, you will now want to split the Dolphin file explorer by clickingSplit” in the top-right corner.

Splitting the browser will make the next process simpler.

Split file explorer

55. With the file explorer split, click the hamburger icon (Three lines) in the top-right corner (1.).

You will then want to ensure that the “Show Hidden Files” option is ticked (2.).

Share hidden folders in Dolphin

56. The first directory you want to locate and open is named “.local“.

Open the local folder in Dolphin

57. Now open the folder named “share“.

Change to the share directory within Dolphin

58. The next directory you must open is the “Steam” directory.

Swap to the Steam Directory in Dolphin

59. Change into the folder named “steamapps“.

Use Dolphin to open the steamapps folder

60. Swap into the “compatdata” folder.

Change to the compatdata folder in Dolphin

61. We now need to change Dolphin to sort by modified date. Start this process by clicking the hamburger icon (1.) in the top-left corner.

Next, hover over the “Sort By” option (2.).

You will want to ensure that the sort by method is set to “Modified” (3.), and also “Newest First” (4.).

With the folders sorted, select the one at the top of the list. This folder will have the same name as the one we dealt with earlier in this guide.

Sort by last modified

62. Now that you are in GoG Galaxy’s Steam Deck folder, swap into the “pfx” directory.

Open the PFX folder in Dolphin

63. The next and final directory you want to open is named “drive_c“.

Change to the drive_c folder in Dolphin

64. You will now want to click and drag the “GOG Games” folder (1.) we created earlier to the right side of the screen (2.).

In the dialog that pops up, you will want to click the “Link Here” option (3.).

Create symbolic link for GOG Games folder on the Steam Deck

65. You should now see your directory on the right side with a little link icon on it.

GOG Games symbolic link

Return to Gaming Mode

66. At this point, you can now return to gaming mode.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to swap to the desktop and double-click the “Return to Gaming Mode” shortcut.

Return to gaming mode

Opening GOG Galaxy in Steam Deck Gaming Mode

67. Now that you are back in gaming mode, change to your game library.

Open the Steam Library

68. To find GOG Galaxy within your Steam Deck’s library, you must change to the “NON-STEAM” tab (1.).

Once you are in this tab, select the “GOG Galaxy” entry (2.).

Open GOG Galaxy from the Steam Deck Library

69. You can launch GOG Galaxy by clicking the “Play” button.

Launch the GOG Galaxy Client on the Steam Deck

70. After logging in you should now have GOG Galaxy running on your Steam Deck.

GOG Galaxy running on the Steam Deck

Changing the Default Install Location for GOG Galaxy

71. Now that GOG Galaxy is running, you will want to change its default install location.

To do this, you must first click the cog icon (1.) in the top-left corner.

In the pop-up menu, click the “Settings” option (2.).

Open GOG settings

72. Within this menu, change to the “Installing, updating” menu using the sidebar.

Next, you will want to click the text box next to “Game installation folder“.

Change the game installation folder

73. You will now get a dialogue you can use to browse and find the folder we created earlier.

In our case, we must first change to the “C:” drive (1.). We can then select the folder we created called “GOG Games” (2.).

Finally, click the “Open” button to select this directory as your new default installation directory.

Choose newly created GOG Games folder

Conclusion

Hopefully, at this point, you will now have the GOG Galaxy client running on your Steam Deck.

GOG gives you access to numerous games that are all free from DRM. The lack of DRM will make these games easier to run under the Steam Deck’s compatibility layer.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions about getting GOG to work on your device.

If you found this guide helpful, we recommend you checkout our many other Steam Deck tutorials.

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2 Comments

  1. Avatar for SzK
    SzK on

    Thanks guys! It’s been really helpful 🙂

  2. Avatar for Greg
    Greg on

    Thank you for this. I have challenges with the Heroic Games Launcher and also with Lutris. This is by far the best solution I feel for both GOG Galaxy and Battle.net. Interestingly the link here and the downloader/installer work better installing in Steam on Linux that the full offline versioned installer file. Will be trying to install and run a few games to see how they work.