Epic and GOG Are Bringing Their Launchers to Linux: What It Means for Your Steam Deck

If you’ve ever wanted your Epic or GOG games on a Steam Deck, you know the ritual. Hold the power button, switch to Desktop Mode, grab Heroic Games Launcher from the Discover store, sign in to each store, and add the games to Steam so they show up when you go back to Game Mode. It works. It’s also a fan-made workaround, because neither Epic nor GOG has ever made a launcher for SteamOS.

This week, both of them moved. Epic said SteamOS is on its list, and GOG said Galaxy is coming to Linux in 2027. Tucked inside Epic’s plans is a line Deck owners won’t love, though: Fortnite is coming to Linux, and the Deck can’t run the anti-cheat it needs.

Is the Epic Games Launcher coming to the Steam Deck?

Yes, eventually, and it’s closer than it sounds. Epic rebuilt its launcher and put it out as a public preview on October 14, for Windows, macOS and, for the first time ever, Linux. So the hard part, an Epic launcher that runs on Linux at all, already exists.

What it doesn’t do yet is install on a Deck officially. For now it’s built for desktop Linux, the Ubuntu kind of system you’d put on a PC. SteamOS is on Epic’s list, though: the company named it this week, with no date. The quicker win is the AppImage, a single file that runs on most Linux systems, due back this month.

One thing a native launcher won’t do is make your games native. Almost everything on Epic is a Windows game, so it still needs translating, the same way your Steam games do on the Deck through Proton. When GamingOnLinux tried the preview, the launcher fetched GE-Proton, a community build of Proton, to run a Windows game. Familiar territory.

Can you play Fortnite on a Steam Deck?

Not on SteamOS, and this is the part worth reading twice. Fortnite has never supported Linux, so the only way to run it on the Deck itself is to install Windows on it.

Epic does want to bring it over. The piece that has to change first is anti-cheat, the software that watches for cheaters while you play. Fortnite uses Epic’s own, Easy Anti-Cheat, and Epic is rebuilding it for Linux as EAC Linux v2. Fortnite gets it first. Once enough Linux distributions support it, Fortnite comes to Linux through the launcher.

Then comes the Deck. It’s left out for now. Epic says the Deck doesn’t have what the new anti-cheat needs, and that it’s talking with Valve. So for a Deck owner, Fortnite on SteamOS isn’t about waiting for the launcher. It’s about Epic and Valve sorting out the hardware side.

Linux gets Fortnite. The Deck waits.

Why can’t the Steam Deck run Epic’s new anti-cheat?

Epic hasn’t said exactly. What it has published is the list of what the new anti-cheat wants, and it reads like a bouncer checking IDs at the door. Secure Boot has to be on, so the machine only starts software signed with a trusted key. A TPM 2.0, the built-in security module that vouches for that, has to be switched on. The Linux kernel has to be signed with a key Epic recognizes, and a handful of deeper settings come on top. Somewhere in that list is something the Deck can’t show at the door yet.

In the meantime, Fortnite on SteamOS means streaming it. NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW has had an official Steam Deck app since May 2025.

When is GOG Galaxy coming to Linux?

In 2027. GOG used its first-ever Showcase this week to announce a rebuilt Galaxy, and its anniversary page sums it up as “faster, fully customizable, with a modern interface, and finally on Linux!” That “finally” is earned: GOG has been saying it’s working on this since the summer, and now there’s a year on it. You can sign up for the beta on the same page. No date yet beyond the year.

Do you need GOG Galaxy at all?

No, and that’s the charm of GOG. Its games are DRM-free, so there’s no copy protection tying them to a launcher. Buy a game there and you can download the installer, keep it on a drive, and install it whenever you like. GOG made a point of saying that Galaxy stays “entirely optional” and that offline installers stay “exactly as they’ve always been.” Some of its games even come in native Linux versions.

So Galaxy on Linux is a nicer front door. The key was always yours.

What do you use on a Steam Deck until then?

Heroic, the same app from the ritual at the top. Once it’s set up, you rarely open it: your Epic and GOG games launch from Game Mode like everything else, and Heroic grabs the right Proton for each Windows game on its own. It handles Amazon Prime Games too, and it’s free.

The official apps won’t retire Heroic overnight. What they change is who fixes it when a store’s launcher breaks on Linux: the store.

What happens next?

Keep an eye on Epic’s supported list. The day SteamOS shows up on it, the Deck gets an official Epic launcher. The AppImage due back this month might get some people there sooner, since a single-file app is the easiest kind to try on a Deck. Fortnite is the long wait, and that one’s between Epic and Valve.