TECH NEWS – Gabe Newell’s team could be bringing new hardware sooner than expected, as SteamOS has just received a curious update…

A recent code commit in SteamOS has revealed that Valve is actively testing support for Arm architecture. This could pave the way for Linux compatibility on Arm-based laptops, but more significantly, it may be a strong indicator that the long-rumored Valve Deckard VR headset is approaching release. Evidence of this surfaced in the official SteamOS GitLab repository, where the first experimental Arm code has been spotted.

SadlyItsBradley pointed out on Twitter that the latest Steam Runtime update includes references to a test build targeting the arm64 (64-bit ARM, aka aarch64) architecture. This early-stage version lacks support for 32-bit ARM binaries, suggesting Valve is focused solely on modern 64-bit systems. The inclusion of this code implies that Valve is beginning to dedicate development resources to Arm compatibility within SteamOS.

Yippee continued pic.twitter.com/Hugmu59jb8

— SadlyItsDadley (@SadlyItsBradley) May 2, 2025

There were previous rumors suggesting that Valve would add Arm support to SteamOS ahead of the Deckard‘s release. One consequence of this move would be broader support for devices running Windows on Arm, such as the new Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 powered by Snapdragon chips. Another theory speculates that Valve might be evaluating Arm support for a potential Steam Deck 2 built around Nvidia hardware.

Apple previously used Wine – the same open-source technology behind Valve’s Proton layer – to develop its Game Porting Toolkit, allowing Windows games to run on Apple systems. It would make sense for Valve to pursue a similar strategy for Arm-based devices. The company has already been caught testing Arm64 compatibility on a number of games, many of which weren’t even VR titles. That seems too coincidental to ignore… but none of this is officially confirmed!

Source: Notebookcheck