How to play Steam games on Android with Steam Link

Just as Play Station has the option to stream the game from the console and continue playing on an Android phone or tablet, which is known as PS Remote Play, Steam also has something similar for the games you have on this platform. It is Steam Link, its own version of Remote Play that will allow you to play Steam games on Android.

What is Steam Link (Steam Remote Play)

Steam Link is an Android app that simply acts as a receiver for what’s happening on your PC screen and gives you the option to control it. It’s basically like those apps that you can use to view and control your PC from your phone , like Chrome Remote Desktop or Microsoft’s RD Client , but dedicated specifically to Steam games. You can view your PC game on your phone screen and control it with the virtual controller or link a Play Station controller to your phone for a better experience.

In other words, the remote play feature offered by Steam Link is dependent on a PC on the same Wi-Fi network as your Steam games. The PC runs the game and sends the signal via Wi-Fi to your phone so you can control it from there.

This is similar to how PS Remote Play works, and is slightly different from what GeForce Now or Play Station Now offer, where games run on servers far away from you, which send the signal to your phone, PC, or console screen, over the Internet. This is what you need if you’re looking to play PC games on your phone, without having a PC at home , or using Winlator , a Windows emulator for Android.

How to play Steam games on Android with Steam Link

1. Launch Steam on your PC.
2. Download the Steam Link app on your Android from Google Play .
3. Open the app and give it the permission it will ask for to find nearby devices.
4. Click Start to search for PCs on the same WiFi.
5. When your PC appears in the app, tap on it to connect. You will be shown a PIN that you must enter in the Steam window that will automatically appear on that PC. After performing a network test, the app will tell you that you are now connected.

In addition to being able to play Steam games on Android, Steam Link even lets you control other PC programs from your phone. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you’ll see the PC screen where the cursor is located on your phone.

Play Steam Games on Android with PS5 Controller

By default, the game on your Android will be controlled with a default Steam Link virtual controller (whose buttons you can edit), but you can pair a PS5 controller to your phone for a better gaming experience, as explained below (it won’t help to have the Play Station 5 controller paired with the PC running the game, as it won’t control the game on your phone). The only requirement is that your phone is running Android 11/12 or higher.

1. Turn off the PS5 controller: press the L1, R1 triggers and the PS button for 15 seconds.
2. Put the controller into pairing mode: press the PS and Create buttons (the small button above the D-pad) at the same time and for a few seconds. The light will start flashing.
3. Activate Bluetooth on your cell phone.
4. In the found devices, tap Wireless Controller and tap Pair when prompted. Wireless Controller should appear as Connected.
5. The light button on the controller should remain lit permanently. When the controller is linked to the phone, Steam Link automatically detects it and overrides the virtual controller.

Connecting a physical controller to your phone is necessary to be able to play Steam games that are not controllable with the virtual controller, such as Crash Bandicoot 4 , where I could only tap on the menus, but nothing else. There are other games that do work fine with the Steam Link virtual controller, such as Street Fighter 6 .

Can you play Steam games on Android decently?

The experience of playing Steam games on Android is acceptable with Steam Link. I tested it with my Samsung Galaxy A52, and although I sometimes had lag and stutters in SF6, it is not unbearable. Having a high-frequency gaming monitor made me perceive the character as “heavier” or slower, something that also happens to me when I connect my PC to a conventional TV.

If you go into Steam on your PC, Settings menu, Remote Play, you can enable advanced host settings (PC) and change the resolution to match the client’s (Android), prioritize network traffic, or also go into advanced client settings and change the Video option to Fast, among other settings. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any improvement by changing these values.

By the way, enabling Steam FPS (Settings, In-Game, FPS Counter) won’t help you evaluate the quality of the experience. FPS isn’t affected, even if there’s lag, because it’s just a stream of the game from PC to mobile. Whatever happens on your computer will be mirrored on your Android.

Please note that this Steam Remote Play is a local WiFi connection, so your internet connection speed should not matter unless you are playing online.

Conclusion

The experience of playing Steam games on Android can be improved and lag-free if you have a high-end phone, say one with a 120Hz refresh rate and a more powerful processor and graphics than the Snapdragon 720G and Adreno 618 in my Samsung. Finally, if Steam goes full-screen on your PC when using Steam Link, just press Alt + F4. The game on your phone should continue to work.