In addition, the same work that we are doing to support the Lenovo Legion Go S will improve compatibility with other handhelds. Ahead of Legion Go S shipping, we will be shipping a beta of SteamOS which should improve the experience on other handhelds, and users can download and test this themselves. And of course we’ll continue adding support and improving the experience with future releases.
SteamOS is an operating system built by Valve. It features a seamless user experience optimized for gaming, while retaining access to the power and flexibility of a PC, and plays tens of thousands of games on Steam. SteamOS currently officially ships on Steam Deck and will soon ship with certain Legion Go S models. Valve is working on SteamOS support for more devices in the future.
SteamOS is optimized for gaming and provides a console-like experience that’s meant to be used with a controller. It offers features like quick suspend / resume to get you quickly in and out of games, and offers seamless system and game updates.
SteamOS puts the player directly into Steam, with access to the full Steam ecosystem – your Steam Library, Steam Cloud, Steam Chat, Steam Game Recording, and more. The user interface is optimized for controller use and it’s easy to install and play Steam games. Best of all, users don’t have to worry about driver updates and hardware tweaks – all of this is handled seamlessly through built in system updates.
SteamOS is Linux based, and the vast majority of the Steam library runs on SteamOS, thanks to the Proton compatibility layer Valve ships. This allows developers to ship games for Windows without worrying about porting to Linux, and games will seamlessly work on SteamOS. When a game doesn’t run well on SteamOS, we call it out with our Verified program so customers know what will and won’t work well.
Yes, it’s the same operating system that Steam Deck runs.
No, if players wish to they can go to desktop mode and install other game launchers and software if they wish.
