Valve will start permitting third-party handhelds to license SteamOS beginning with Lenovo’s new Legion Go S.
At CES 2025, Lenovo introduced that it’s going to ship a model of its upcoming Legion Go S handheld referred to as the “Powered by SteamOS” that can run, you guessed it, SteamOS. This is identical OS that powers Valve’s Steam Deck, which is fairly good in the event you’re primarily somebody who owns all their PC video games on Steam.
As a part of the launch, Valve revealed a weblog that confirmed that alongside the Legion Go S, Valve is working on “a beta of SteamOS which ought to enhance the epxerience on different handhelds and customers can obtain and thest this themselves.” That means that SteamOS must be accessible on non-Steam Deck handheld gaming PCs as effectively.
The advantages of SteamOS, particularly for these with large Steam libraries, is that of the hand held PC interfaces, SteamOS could be very clean and straightforward to navigate. Whereas not necessary for handheld PC gaming, it has its followers and shortly even non-Steam Deck homeowners can set up it for their very own handhelds.
IGN is at CES 2025 the place we already previewed the Legion Go S, a lighter model of Lenovo’s 2023 handheld the Legion Go. It is available in a lighter formfactor, however with some enhancements underneath the hood. It isn’t, nevertheless, a next-gen handheld. That is the Lenovo Go 2, which is able to make the most of the AMD Z2 Excessive APU and is presently within the prototype section.
Be certain to stay round for all our updates from CES and tell us in the event you’re excited to put in SteamOS to your non-Steam Deck handheld.
Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Options Editor.