Searching around, the CD Key can be found in the COG icon menu of the game in your Steam Library. Of course, normally, the desktop Steam client would've had a pop-up to tell you that you have a CD Key and the game might ask for it - no such thing happens on the Steam Deck. I decided to swap it over to Proton Experimental (tip: here's a guide on swapping Proton versions on Steam Deck), and that actually worked! I could get the launcher to load without fail through multiple tries but I still needed a code. Tried a reboot, the issue persisted.Īt this point, I'm annoyed. The launcher just didn't load any more and it dumped me back into my Steam Library. Thinking it's a launcher error, I reloaded and it then broke completely. What code? Nothing told me I needed a code when I purchased it on Steam. Now it tells me I need an activation code.

Hooray! This got it to install the launcher and my face lights up with joy and anticipation to drive around and do silly things. Hit the Steam button for the Overlay, tell it to exit the game. So the next step was of course to restart the game entirely. Clearly not a good experience right away. It gave an option to retry with a button I clicked, but that totally failed again. Except during the launcher install Rockstar gave an error telling me that it simply couldn't proceed. I was at least pre-warned on this since I read the compatibility note.

The annoyance begins here of course as I've already waited on a 100GB download. On first launch with Proton 7, what it was verified against, it tells you it needs to install the Rockstar Launcher before you can play. Here though, it was far worse and this is the short story of a semi-eventful Saturday night where I just wanted to play a game that I picked carefully enough - or so I thought.

This means it should work well but may have some minor annoyances like small text or a part requiring the touch screen. This is a game that has gone through verification, to get a Deck 'Playable' rating.

See also: How Valve Can Make the Deck Verified Program Better As I continue to use the Steam Deck that Valve sent over for both work and play, I tried Grand Theft Auto V and the initial setup was a massive nuisance.

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