Steam Deck Expands Gaming With AI-Powered Tools

AI-powered game rebuilding is expanding Steam Deck compatibility and allowing users to play titles previously restricted to other platforms.

Valve is expanding Steam Deck's capabilities as new tools and applications let it run games previously limited to other platforms. Game decompilation and recompilation are becoming more common, allowing developers and users to rebuild existing games as PC applications. Alongside these developments, AI-powered tools and community-made plugins are changing how games run and how users interact with SteamOS.

One of the latest developments in PC gaming is the growing use of decompilation and recompilation. This is nothing new, as people have been doing it for a while, but the process is becoming more accessible with AI tools like Claude. People are using Claude to take games like Pokémon SoulSilver, which originally used two screens, and rebuild them from the ground up as single-screen games.

AI-Powered Game Decompilation

The same process is now being used with other games. A recent example is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which has been decompiled and recompiled to run at around 30 or 40fps, even in demanding areas on the Steam Deck. This is happening with several games. People are also taking characters like Leon from Resident Evil 4 and putting them into Elden Ring.

It's interesting to see these developments while game publishers continue to restrict where their games are available. Xbox is moving back toward exclusives, although its games will remain on PC, and some titles could still leave Steam. PlayStation is also stopping PC ports, while Nintendo has never released its games on PC and does not appear likely to do so.

Things are different now. A PS5 costs around $600, an Xbox costs around $900, and the Switch 2 costs over $500. Even the Steam Deck, which was considered an affordable option for PC gaming, now costs $700. As a result, people are taking matters into their own hands. If publishers don't bring games to their preferred platforms, users are finding ways to run those games on the hardware they already own.

The same situation is developing with newer console hardware. Switch 2 became emulatable sooner than expected, and footage already shows someone playing Pokopia at 60fps on an iPhone 18 Pro. The game appears to run with its features intact, including touchscreen controls, making it possible to play the title natively through emulation on an iPhone.

SteamOS Translation Tools Expand Windows Gaming on Mac

Steam is also becoming more flexible across different hardware. Developments involving tools like Leptin and Fex have made it possible to run a session-based version of SteamOS on a Mac computer. This allows users to run a translation layer on top of Apple's Metal translation layer to play Windows games. Although Steam already works natively on Mac, users have traditionally relied on developers to release Mac versions of their games.

These tools provide another way to run Windows games without requiring official Mac support. Steam Deck now offers the same flexibility. A Pokémon remake project based on the Nintendo DS versions runs through a launcher. Users download the launcher, which creates a ROM folder where they can place games like Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, SoulSilver, and HeartGold.

The launcher then rebuilds the games from scratch, removes the second screen, and makes them run at 60fps. This fixes one of the problems associated with playing dual-screen games on the Steam Deck. On a traditional DS emulator, the second screen is either placed in a small corner or stacked with the main screen, taking up a significant portion of the display.

The rebuilt versions remove that limitation and make the games work as single-screen experiences.

Similar projects exist for other games. Dusk Light, for example, rebuilds Twilight Princess as a PC application from the ground up. It can run on devices like the AYN Thor, and the same approach lets you bring games Nintendo hasn't carried forward to the Switch 2 to the Steam Deck, PC, or even a phone.

However, these projects could face restrictions in the future. Claude has reportedly started cracking down on certain uses, including taking existing game characters like Leon and placing them into Elden Ring. Rebuilding existing games isn't new, but it used to take years of reverse engineering.

Developers had to understand what each section of the original code did and then rewrite it for Windows. Essentially, they were rebuilding the application from the ground up. With Claude, the process is faster, although the results can still contain errors and bugs. Even with those limitations, the results are good enough that some users accept the compromises.