Android games will appear on Steam

Valve has announced the expansion of the Steam ecosystem and confirmed that the platform will work with Android games. The company said that developers will be able to host their APKs on Steam with the launch of the new Steam Frame device, which is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.

Valve engineer Jeremy Celan explained that the company aims to make the process of accessing games as simple as possible, so that users can download and run a game regardless of whether it is created for Windows or Android. Developers are offered to use the same APK files that are used for smartphones or VR devices like the Meta Quest, and run them directly on the Steam Frame.

Valve is targeting the new feature primarily at studios working on VR projects for Android, which will now be able to port their developments to Steam without having to make any changes. To this end, the company has opened a Steam Frame Developer Kit program, thanks to which developers can get the necessary hardware for testing.

Although SteamOS is not based on Android, games will be able to run natively on ARM processors without emulation, which should provide more stable performance and faster responsiveness. Valve also announced plans to introduce a browser and multi-window mode, which will allow you to run web applications directly in the Steam environment.

The company has not yet commented on the issue of support for regular Android applications such as Discord, but Valve representatives have hinted that such an opportunity may appear later. Jeremy Celan noted that the current step is just the beginning, and Steam Frame is seen as the first stage in the formation of broader support for ARM devices, including laptops and portable consoles.