How to install Battle.net on the Steam Deck and SteamOS

Blizzard doesn't officially support the Steam Deck, but it doesn't take much work to get Battle.net running on SteamOS.

In fact, thanks to the efforts of the community, there are now a few ways to install Battle.net on Steam Deck – either you install it by adding the launcher to Steam, or by using a third-party tool, such as Bottles or Lutris.

In this guide, we'll show you all three options. While there shouldn't be any major differences between the different installation methods, sometimes installing the game via Lutris or Bottles gives you better compatibility. I personally have it installed the easy way, however.

How to install Battle.net on Steam Deck the native way

1. For a native installation: On your Steam Deck, go to desktop mode. Click the Steam button, go down to Power, and then Switch to Desktop. Wait for your Deck to reboot.
2. Next, open up the browser of your choice, go to the Blizzard download page (or search for it on Google), and download the Windows installer.
3. Next, we need to add the downloaded .exe file to Steam. Open up desktop Steam, go to Library, and at the bottom left corner, click on the plus sign, then Add a Non-Steam Game.... Navigate to your downloads folder by clicking on Browse, and then go to home/deck/Downloads and add the Battle.net installer file to Steam. If you can't find the installer, make sure to show All Files under File type:
4. Now, navigate to the newly added entry in your Steam Library. It should be called something along the lines of Battle.net-Setup.exe. Don't launch it yet, but instead click on the cog wheel icon, then Properties... and under Compatibility, toggle the Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool option. Choose an up-to-date flavour of GE-Proton. Follow our Proton Steam Deck guide to learn how to install it.
5. Now hit Play to launch the installer, follow the different steps, and wait until it's done. When the installation process is done, you can remove the Battle.net-Setup.exe from Steam again. Right-click it, go to Manage, then Remove non-Steam game from your library.
6. Next, we want to add the installed launcher to Steam. In Desktop Steam,  go to Library, and at the bottom left corner, click on the plus sign, then Add a Non-Steam Game.... Now we need to look for the file. Click on Browse and navigate to the following folder by going through the folder structure: home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/. Don't forget to show All Files under File type:.
7. Here you need to search for the latest added folder under DATE MODIFIED. It should be a 10-character long number. Open it, and go to the following folder: pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Battle.net. Here select the Battle.net Launcher.exe file. Add this one to Steam.
8. Don't launch it yet, but instead click on the cog wheel icon, then Properties... and under Compatibility, toggle the Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool option, like we did in step four.
9. Phew! We're finally done. Launch Battle.net now. If you want to customize the artwork, I propose you check out the following guide.

How to install Battle.net on Steam Deck using Bottles

1. On your Steam Deck, go to desktop mode. Click the Steam button, go down to Power, and then Switch to Desktop. Wait for your Deck to reboot.
2. In desktop mode, open up Discover. You find it by clicking on the menu button.
3. Search for Bottles. (If the keyboard doesn't pop up, click the Steam Button + the X-button.) Install the app. Bottles is a popular tool to run Windows software and games on Linux.
4. Next, search for Flatseal. We need to give some extra permissions to Bottles and this is the fastest way.
5. Open up Flatseal, click on Bottles in the sidebar and add, under Filesystem, Other files the following path:  /var/home/deck/.local/share/applications.
6. Open up Bottles. Here, we need to create an environment, a so-called bottle. Click on the plus sign, give it a nice name and choose Gaming as the environment. This might take a while.
7. Next, we need to switch to a different runner (similar to Proton-versions in the Steam Deck game UI). In the sidebar, go to Preferences, scroll down to System and click on the little cog-icon. Under Runners, install the latest version of caffe. To select it, exit this screen again, and under System, open up the Components option. Choose the version of caffe you want to install.
8. Now to install Battle.net. In the sidebar, under Installers you'll find the Blizzard Battle.net launcher. Pick that and wait for the installation.
9. If you care, you can add Battle.net to the Steam Library. In Bottles under Programs, click on the three dots next to the Battle.net name. Here, pick Add to Steam and you're done. Another way is to install Boilr from Discover and let it do its job, this is the method I used. But that's a guide for another time.

How to install Battle.net using Lutris

1. On your Steam Deck, go to desktop mode. Click the Steam button, go down to Power, and then Switch to Desktop. Wait for your Deck to reboot.
2. In desktop mode, open up Discover. You find it by clicking on the menu button.
3. In Discover, look for Lutris and install it. After installation, start the program.
4. If you can't find Lutris in Discover, you need to type in the following command into Konsole, the terminal-app of SteamOS: flatpak install flathub-beta net.lutris.Lutris. You'll be presented with a couple of prompts, so just hit Y on your keyboard a few times to continue the process.
5. Next, you need to add this couple of text to Konsole: flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform.Compat.i386 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default. You'll be shown a list with a few different choices after hitting Enter on this line. Always pick the latest one presented. Press Y when asked to do so.
6. Now you can start Lutris through the menu. Open it.
7. In Lutris, you want to hit the top-left + button. Next, choose Search the Lutris website for installers.
8. In the next window, type in Blizzard and pick Blizzard Battle.net.
9. Lutris comes with a bunch of scripts preloaded that will help the setup of installers. So in the next step, you can scroll through the list of what Lutris wants to install, and hit Install to do so. Next, pick wherever you want to install Battle.net, and choose if you want to create a Desktop or Steam shortcut.
10. Hit Install and in the next window Continue. Wait for it to finish, and follow the installation process of Battle.net.
11. It might take the Lutris installer a while to recognize Battle.net has been installed. Don't worry, if it takes a few minutes, which it did for us.

There you have it, three methods to install Battle.net on the Steam Deck and SteamOS.

However, if you want to install games on the microSD card, instead of internally after following the "native method", we need to do one more thing — so stay on the SteamOS Desktop.

How to install Battle.net games on the Steam Deck microSD card

1. Go to the launcher we've added, click on the cog wheel icon, then Properties... and add the following under LAUNCH OPTIONS: STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/ %command%
2. Next, open up Dolphin, which is your file explorer and navigate to your microSD card. Here, you can now create a folder for your Battle.net games.
3. Now, when you launch Battle.net and plan to install a game, don't forget to change the Install Location that Battle.net proposes. There will be several drive letters, just look for the one with the newly created folder. In my case, it was drive E:. Now, install all the games you want.