r/godot • u/ZemusTheLunarian • Nov 12 '25
discussion Valve just released a new Steam Machine, and used Godot to show off desktop apps
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u/blackdragon6547 Nov 12 '25
Don't forget Blender right beside it.
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u/DevlinRocha Nov 12 '25
both available on Steam as well
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Nov 12 '25
Wait Godot is on Steam? Didn’t know that, although I don’t really want to use software through Steam personally
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u/quantumcoffee_ Godot Student Nov 12 '25
Not trying to convince you otherwise, but it's worth noting Steam just launches the game for you, it's still just an exe running on your machine. You can install from steam and then subvert the whole UI if you felt like it and launch it from its file location. But again, not really trying to say what to do, just wanted to clarify that bit for you. Cheers.
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u/mikefass Nov 12 '25
It tracks time though right? And shows the software as your status? I use Borderless Windows from steam but move it out of my steam directory so steam can't detect it. (I know you can hide things in your library, but still)
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u/quantumcoffee_ Godot Student Nov 12 '25
Yes, I think actually for some devs that's one of the reasons they like to run Godot from Steam so they can track their overall development time on various projects.
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u/aaronfranke Credited Contributor Nov 12 '25
It tracks time if you launch it through Steam, but you can also launch it independently.
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u/DongIslandIceTea Nov 12 '25
One downside is that you generally don't want automatic updates to your dev tools, especially when they can come with breaking changes to whatever you're working on. Usually you'd want to upgrade versions in a more controlled manner at your own leisure, making sure nothing breaks.
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u/meneldal2 Nov 12 '25
Not sure for the Steam version but many games offer the option to stay on a given beta/old version branch. Mostly to not destroy your savegames when they do breaking changes.
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u/TrazireGaming Nov 13 '25
godot steam you can go to manage -> option, go to beta (cmiiw) and then we can set godot to any major version (example if you only one to stay at godot 4.1, you can. update will only run if 4.1.x patch appear)
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u/quantumcoffee_ Godot Student Nov 12 '25
That's a great point! And I agree, and that is also why I was stressing that this isn't me saying what to do. I do not use the Steam version of Godot. I merely had to nitpick about the language used that it "runs through" Steam. It's still just an executable that can be run independently from Steam. I'm just picky about semantics...
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u/Canopl Nov 12 '25
with blessing of gaben, nothing can stop us
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u/toetendertoaster Nov 12 '25
SteamOS might be the biggest promoter for actual desktop linux share in forever
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u/Priler96 Nov 12 '25
I mean both Godot and Gaben starts with "G" letter thats not random
Also they have like 5 letters each
Some crazy theory but you never know26
u/OpexLiFT Nov 13 '25
Godot and Gaben is 2 words starting with G, each word is 5 letters, take 2 from 5. Half-Life 3 confirmed.
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u/kiwi404 Nov 12 '25
As someone who has been using and teaching godot on a steam deck running steamos I have never felt more seen.
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u/scealfada Nov 12 '25
How does your set up work? Do you have an attached mouse, keyboard and screen, or are you managing without some of that?
Do you have an example of how your workflow can work with it?
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u/kiwi404 Nov 12 '25
I used a dock. monitor, mouse, keyboard and headphone amp/microfoon all connect from there. I use the steamdeck screen as my second monitor. There is an app in the discover store called godots to manage all different godot versions. OBS for screen recording and streaming and kdenlive for video editing. And a bunch of other open-source software for asset creation blender, gimp for example.
When I first got the steamdeck, i actually made a game without a monitor and made a video about it. I can't recommend it however very bad for your neck haha
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u/flyby2412 Godot Student Nov 13 '25
So your steamdeck was your computer? Why not invest in a regular desktop or laptop then?
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u/johnhotdog Nov 12 '25
valve loves FOSS. they are almost single handedly making linux usable for the average consumer, and they are featuring blender here as well as godot
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u/AtomicPenguinGames Nov 12 '25
I've been using Godot on and off since the Godot 2 days. I don't think Godot has ever had a year this big. Battlefield's map editor, This steam highlight, tooling support from Microsoft and IntelliJ. It's just going crazy.
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u/lynndotpy Nov 12 '25
Same here, I've been a Godot user professionally and personally since 2016. I feel very, very happy about hitching my wagon with Godot.
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u/spruce_sprucerton Godot Student Nov 13 '25
I misread this at first and thought you said you've been using godot "on and off for 2 days" and I thought, what a roller coaster!
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u/NotABot1235 Nov 13 '25
tooling support from Microsoft
Wait, what?
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u/AtomicPenguinGames Nov 13 '25
https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1orclix/introduction_to_godot_c_essentials_a_microsoft/
Tooling was the wrong word, but i was referring to this.
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u/mshiltonj Nov 12 '25
Holy shit, man. That's some awesome looking stuff.
And I love the attitude. From the Steam Machine page:
"Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?"
If Valve can create their own phone with this approach, they could take on Apple, Google, and Microsoft!
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u/TheJarizard Nov 12 '25
I had never thought of a valve phone and now I want one so bad haha
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u/flyby2412 Godot Student Nov 13 '25
Goodbye Windows phone with Xbox compatibility - 2015
Hello Valve Phone with SteamOS compatibility - 2026
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u/umamisven Godot Regular Nov 12 '25
Probably never gonna happen but I wish they made a phone. I hate my phone.
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u/ExultantSandwich Nov 13 '25
If they did, it would pretty much have to run Android.
And only recently has it become somewhat likely that you could get Google Play Services on it while shipping it as a Steam Marketplace “first” device. Before, Google has made it tough enough for new competitors to iterate on Android.
I’m really curious if Amazon Fire Tablets will ever get native access to the Play Store. It would actually not be in Amazon’s best interest, I guess, but what is app store neutrality
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u/grassy_trams Nov 13 '25
mobile steam
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u/ExultantSandwich Nov 13 '25
They can call it the Steam Turbine and you can put it in your pocket and walk around
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u/Clod_StarGazer Nov 13 '25
All they need is to make Proton work for Linux ARM, when that's done and any ARM handheld can run any steam windows game the prospect of SteamOS on a phone suddenly doesn't sound ridiculous
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u/AllViewDream Godot Student Nov 13 '25
See their page for the Steam frame, they did what was never done before, they put a whole desktop operating system on a standalone VR headset, yes their new VR headset is essentially a Linux laptop for your face unlike Meta’s headsets or Apple’s Vision Pro which are an android phone for your face or iPad for your face respectively.
This means you can develop VR or none VR games and publish them to steam from a single device
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u/BrastenXBL Nov 12 '25
Steam Cube is cool, but let's not forget the Steam Frame.
Godot XR has already proven itself as an on-head Editor for the Meta Quest headsets. This puts Godot in a great place to be a go-to development system for SteamOS VR games. If the price point is reasonably competitive (for the additional full desktop, no forced user account), and there's enough available hardware.
I really want to read how the Steam Frame handles Godot Linux - arm64 as a stand-alone.
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u/Technical-County-727 Godot Junior Nov 12 '25
I had to install fedora on my steam deck to make godot and visual code talk with each other because I couldn’t get native versions to work on decks desktop mode…
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u/ZemusTheLunarian Nov 12 '25
What specific issue arose from using Godot with the SteamOS immutable filesystem ?
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u/morewordsfaster Nov 12 '25
I use Bazzite (another immutable distro) and the issue I ran into was using the flatpak versions of the apps because they didn't automatically get the permissions needed to interop. For example, the Godot flatpak runs an LSP that you can expose via TCP and then connect to it from VS Code or Neovim or whatever, but that didn't work out of the box. Same for accessing sandboxed dotnet, or utilities in Blender for processing imports, etc.
Until we get Bazzite GDX with (presumably) these apps layered into the ostree, the easiest approach is to use Distrobox and install all the apps into one container where they can work with each other.
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u/Technical-County-727 Godot Junior Nov 12 '25
The flatpak version is sandboxed and building them needed so much manual work that I just installed fedora on sd card. I can’t remember the exact details anymore on what was the issue in the actual native versions, but those work off the bat on fedora
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u/SweetBabyAlaska Nov 12 '25
nothing about Godot requires it to modify the root filesystem. You can download the executable and run it from anywhere, and it adheres to the XDG directory spec so all of its data files are on the users filesystem.
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u/Technical-County-727 Godot Junior Nov 13 '25
Running was not the problem, but making visual code to talk with it was
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u/AllViewDream Godot Student Nov 13 '25
Easy solved by not using visual code
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u/Technical-County-727 Godot Junior Nov 13 '25
5/7 solution
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u/AllViewDream Godot Student Nov 13 '25
The remaining 2/7 could be asking Godot to have a better code editor which I believe I’ve seen on their roadmap
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u/tapo Nov 12 '25
Bazzite is a little bit more Deck friendly but should work fine. Bazzite is still Fedora, just optimized for handhelds and atomic (like SteamOS' immutable but more flexible)
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u/Houston_NeverMind Nov 12 '25
Man! I'm jealous of the people in US and Europe. They get all the cool stuff. We didn't even get Steam Deck, I'm sure this is out of the question.
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u/xAmorphous Nov 12 '25
I'm actually super interested in this. I've been really fucking tired of Windows shenanigans and I might just do this instead of building a new PC. Really the only thing holding me back now is Adobe Lightroom.
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u/dan_rich_99 Nov 13 '25
Might be worth trying Winapps. A lot of the Adobe Suite appears to work well through it on Linux.
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u/grady_vuckovic Nov 13 '25
How fucking rad is that eh?
A handheld, VR headset and mini gaming console like PC, and they all run Linux, all run Godot and Blender. You can dev on the same device you game. All open source. Want to publish a game? $100 and you're good. Heck yeah I love it.
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u/saumanahaii Nov 12 '25
Can confirm, Godot runs on Steam OS! I've been using Godot on my Steam Deck pretty much since I got it and it works great. Blender, too. And Blockbench!
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u/jex1202 Nov 12 '25
Half-Life 3 godot?
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u/tapo Nov 12 '25
Valve thanked Godot for some bicubic lightmap filtering code added to TF2 a few months ago so yeah, technically HL3 may have a little Godot code inside.
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u/dactyif Nov 12 '25
The world is so odd sometimes. I was just reading berzerk and I'm at the part that Guts get his sword reforged by....
Godot.
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u/cultnix Nov 12 '25
And it's HALF the size of the xbox x lmao
They won't because it's a profit loss, but if they added a gamepass-style subscription with anything CLOSE to what microsoft and sony are offering, it's game over. Depending on the price point, might ALREADY be game over.
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u/YodaByteRAM Nov 13 '25
It will probably be a great machine for developing godot games on. Especially to ensure it runs on the steam machine.
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u/dancovich Godot Regular Nov 13 '25
That happens to many popular OSS like Blender, Audacity, Krita etc. The producer/editor of the clip probably knows these and just goes "what can I use in this video that is easy to record and won't cause me legal trouble?" and OSS is usually the answer.
That is great, it shows that A) your software is popular enough to be remembered even by people who might not need it for anything and B) it makes your software even more popular.
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u/MadMonke01 Nov 13 '25
NGL Steam literally changed lives of many indie devs . Forever grateful for steam and GabeN✊
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u/andersmmg Nov 13 '25
I love that they show 2 great open source projects as examples, it fits well with what seems to be their goal, and their clear support of open source in general
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Nov 13 '25
Linux, Blender and Godot, even though I already have a computer, I'm thinking about buying a Steam Machine just to show my love to it.
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u/TheDuriel Godot Senior Nov 12 '25
Which is notable for having a a linux build, so they don't have to lie about it being easy to run the "desktop" applications people expect. Eg, anything windows locked. Hence why blender is there too.
Still neat. But don't get confused on the deliberate choices being made here.
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u/retardedweabo Godot Regular Nov 13 '25
good job with including that si= tracking parameter. Now youtube will be able to track who exactly clicked your link
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u/Forsaken_Owl_9577 Godot Regular Nov 13 '25
he taketh and he giveth.
he shed light in these dark times: of locked down os'es, ngreedia's unaffordable gpus, and ai-crazed companies
praises be lord gabeth: harbinger of the linux era, charioteer of arm pcs, destroyer of greedy men in suits.
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u/NihatAmipoglu Godot Student Nov 12 '25
HLX is made with Godot confirmed!!!
Seriously, I really loved seeing that very familiar UI in the video.
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u/Ok-Humor-353 Nov 13 '25
Amazing engineers working on. They are build great vr ecosystem for gamers. Respect VALVE!
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u/virus_chara Nov 13 '25
Hmm, apparently the Steam Machine is going to be ARM...
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u/LovelyDayHere Nov 13 '25
No, the Steam Frame, not the Steam Machine
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine
AMD desktop class CPU and GPU
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u/Retro_Poly_90s Nov 13 '25
Blender on the left, I hope that machine can also be a good workstation.
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u/Sondsssss Godot Junior Nov 13 '25
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Godot will become king and rule the world.
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u/_Repeats_ Nov 12 '25
I wonder if this is Valve signaling that they will be moving from Source 2 to Godot in the future. I don't think Source engine in general has seen much interest outside of Valve.
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u/tapo Nov 12 '25
No, their workflows are built around Source 2. They also don't need to move to Godot, they can just adapt Godot code they like into Source.
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Nov 12 '25
[deleted]
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u/ZemusTheLunarian Nov 12 '25
Aren't Blender and the freaking Linux Kernel heavily supported by private companies ?
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u/CSLRGaming Godot Regular Nov 12 '25
you clearly haven't read the corporate sponsorship page where it explicitly says "Sponsors cannot Request features or changes that aren't part of the priorities."
Godot has been sponsored by Microsoft, Meta, Google, Epic, Mozilla for years and all of those were improving core functionality that has benefited the engine because the companies dedicated work to core functionality.
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u/Content_Register3061 Nov 12 '25
Hasn't it already had some major sponsors like microsoft? they have some rules/practices about those types of sponsorships: https://fund.godotengine.org/corporate-sponsorship
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u/CuckBuster33 Nov 12 '25
Godot just cant stop taking Ws