Can you play Steam games on your phone? Answered

Despite mobile gaming continuing to evolve in interesting ways, PC and console games are still leagues ahead in quality, variety, and scope. With an estimated 75% market share of the PC gaming distribution space, Steam is the de facto leader on PC, and if you are reading this, you are likely among the millions of players who game on Valve’s storefront every week. You may also be among the much larger demographic of people with phones and wondering whether you can play your Steam games on your mobile. This quick guide will answer every question you may have about playing Steam games on your phone.

Can you play Steam games on your phone?

The answer is yes. The Steam Deck is not the only way to play your PC games on the go: you can play Steam games on your phone with Steam Link. Steam Link is an application that streams your Steam client on any other device of your choosing. You can use it to stream games to another computer, to your TV, or directly to your phone or other mobile devices. Steam Link is available for Android and for iOS and, of course, requires a persistent internet connection to work.

The downsides are pretty self-explanatory. Since you are not actually playing on your chosen device but rather streaming from another, you will notice a slight latency and some graphical disruption. As long as you are not playing online multiplayer games and your connection is decently fast, the experience won’t suffer.

Related: The best Mac Steam games worth playing in 2022

How to play Steam games on your phone

To play Steam games on your phone or other mobile devices, first, you need to install Steam Link on them. You can grab the app for free from the App Store if you are using iOS or the Google Play store for Android. Then complete the connection process and you are all set. Note, that Steam needs to be running in order for the Steam Link app to be able to connect to it. You cannot start Steam remotely through the app.

Steam Link supports almost all games in the Steam library, and you can use a Bluetooth controller compatible with your mobile device. If you would rather use the touch screen to play Steam games on your phone, you can select from a number of control schemes, some emulating keyboard and mouse controls and others more typical of mobile games.