Steam for ChromeOS is all but about to go live in beta 

After years of rumors, Google announced that it was bringing popular gaming platform Steam to Chromebooks in Alpha in 2022. There were a lot of strings attached, though, which made it an ordeal to run the program for anyone who wants to use their capable Chromebooks for actual work, too. This could be about to change, as Google is preparing to move Steam support to the beta version of ChromeOS, which makes it much more accessible to a lot more gamers.

A change in the Chromium Gerrit that was spotted by 9to5Google makes clear that Google is just about ready to move forward with broader Steam support. The ticket reads, “Allow borealis to run on the beta branch,” further explaining, “When borealis enters the beta development phase we will allow compatible chromebooks [sic!] on the beta channel to install it.” Borealis is, of course, the code name for the Steam project in ChromeOS, so when Google developers are talking about it, they mean Steam support.

While there isn’t much more to be gleaned from in the Chromium Gerrit entry, the fact that Google is in the process of merging the change means that it likely won’t take too long until we see support for Steam in the ChromeOS beta channel.

Making Steam available in the beta channel is a significant step forward for the project, as the gaming platform becomes much more accessible. Right now, Steam is only available in the Dev or Canary channel, which receive updates on a weekly or daily basis, but they often come with problems that can severely hamstring how your Chromebook works. It’s not recommended to use them for everyday tasks. The beta channel is already much more stable and while sometimes issues crop up in it, these releases are as close to the final version as they get.

For a deep dive into how Steam works on ChromeOS, check out our Steam Alpha hands-on. If you're feeling particularly brave and would like to give Steam Alpha a try before it hits the beta channel, learn how to install Steam on your Chromebook.

( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)

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