Google to end Steam support for Chromebooks from 2026

Google will stop Steam Beta support for Chromebooks on 1 January 2026. When that day comes, you won’t be able to open Steam, install anything new, or even keep the games already there. They’ll vanish from your device.

Google pulls the plug on Steam Beta for Chromebooks

The Steam experiment began in 2022. Google teamed up with Valve to see if Chromebooks could run a small set of PC games. It wasn’t the full Steam library, just 99 titles picked to work on ChromeOS. For many Chromebook owners, it was the first time their lightweight laptops felt like gaming machines.

Steam, of course, is where millions of PC gamers go to buy and play games, on Windows, macOS or Linux. Getting it to work Chromebook felt like a small win for people who didn’t want to spend on a high-end gaming set-up.

Now that window is closing. Google has already started letting people know. The service will run until the end of December 2025, then switch off. If you still want PC-quality games after that, you’ll have to look at cloud services like NVIDIA GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming. Both can stream games to your Chromebook, but you’ll need solid internet and, in many cases, a paid subscription.

For everyday Chromebook users, the change may not matter much. But for the small crowd who enjoyed having Steam there, it’s a step backwards. In India, Chromebooks have found their place among students and anyone wanting a simple, low-cost laptop. Steam Beta gave them a taste of bigger games without the heavy hardware. Losing it means going back to the Play Store’s Android games, which don’t offer the same titles or depth.

Some will adapt quickly, jumping to mobile games or trying cloud gaming. Others might not bother. It’s hard to say how many people were using Steam on Chromebooks regularly, but those who were will notice the difference the first time they log in and see it’s gone. There’s still over a year to enjoy it. After that, Chromebook gaming will be back to what it was before 2022, light, casual, and better suited to short breaks than all-night sessions. Whether that’s enough depends on what you expect from a laptop in the first place.

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