- Steam on Chrome OS support began as a beta test in early 2022.
- After graduating to a beta later that year, progress slowed down.
- Now users are being informed that the beta is slated to end as 2026 gets started.
Choosing a Chromebook over a standard PC laptop can make sense for a lot of good reasons, from wanting to take advantage of the platform’s track record of security, to just hoping to save some money on affordable hardware. But one pro we rarely see on that list is “good for gaming.” Over the past few years, though, there’s been the hope that the gaming landscape on Chrome OS could be getting a lot better, and one area with a ton of potential was support for Steam and its vast library of games. Sadly, it now look like that effort will never have the chance to leave beta.
Steam support on Chrome OS has been in an experimental stage for years now, first arriving as an early alpha back in 2022. You needed a decently powerful Chromebook, and getting it up and running was bit more complicated than installing your standard app, but in the end it worked, and made Chromebooks feel a heck of a lot more premium.