Last updated on December 1st, 2025 at 06:07 pm
Steam Link – Entertainment Game Review
Steam Link is a Entertainment game from Valve Corporation, first launched in 16th May 2019.
It’s rated 17+ and currently has 2,753+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Steam Link Stand Out
The Steam Link app brings desktop gaming to your iPhone or iPad. Just pair an MFI or Steam controller to your device, connect to a computer running Steam on the same local network, and start playing your existing Steam games.
Requirements:
- iPhone or iPad using iOS 11.0 or higher
- Computer running Steam – Windows, Mac, or Linux
- iOS device must be on the same local network as the computer running Steam
For best performance:
- Connect your computer using Ethernet to your 5Ghz WiFi router
- Connect your iOS device to the 5GHz band of your WiFi network
- Keep your iOS device within a reasonable range of your router
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Steam Link is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 14th November 2025
Recent improvements include:
- Removed confusing "trackpad" vs "trackpad cursor" mouse mode in the touch controller
Download & Availability
Steam Link is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
We lik stem becaus we hav goo game and nic grapic :).
Play on our 13 iPad Pro M4, 1gb internet. Still get lag every now and then but Ive played at least 30 hours of Ghost of Tsushima on it no problem. We have played outside of network but if the internet isnt great on both ends the latency is pretty frustrating. Also only played with Xbox one controller which Ive never had an issue with.
Its good for running gorilla tag on mobile.
Very good do notice a few milliseconds delay but not too noticeable. It worked very well on our first time trying it out. Im very satisfied and awesome this is free.
We've noticed that if your PC is connected to modem via Ethernet and you are using it on a mac close to the router, the streaming is excellet. Not so great on our iPad pro even close enough to router.
Its a bit laggy but yeah also Im 10 so u did good u pleased us we shall now play all our steam games. Hi Im just updating the review and its almost our bday :).
So we deleted steam link cause we couldnt get a computer and now when we tried to get it cause we got a pc we had 0.00 dollars.
We use this app almost everyday. If we gotta hit the head while Im in queue for a dota match, grab phone pop on steam link, never miss a queue. If we leave our satisfactory world running while Im away from our pc and we wanted to see if everything was running smoothly, use the link to check in. If we want to remote download a game/purchase a game in desktop mode by the time we get home itll be waiting for us. The app does a lot of things really well including letting you shutdown and access basically your entire pc remotely in a lightweight response low latency package, however the one thing it doesnt do well is gaming. Thats not the fault of the app but the device which it is on. The only thing we would add is better dynamic resolution support for multiple displays of different sizes or at least allow us to select a monitor as primary to avoid issues on the app. Been using this non stop for 4-5 years now and even had the actual physical link back in the day. Great product. Keep it free and keep it up.
If using nix for hosting steam: steam -pipewire.
We use this with the AppleTV wired through a high end switch to a mid tier CPU / 3080 desktop running W11. Seems flawless for the games we play.
This is a good application for people who want to share games in 1 house but only have 1 computer.
We dont know why people keeps saying it doesnt working, for us it works awesome without any delays, so maybe for some people its internet problems, not the app.
On average, this is an incredible app that lets you play on the go with your phone or mobile device. However, in a few cases it will just not work. Considerable cases being weird green screen with only a mouse visible. You can still hear whats going on, but nothing is visible. Other cases include crashing upon startup, and not recognizing computers running stream every so often. It could use a couple bug fixes here and there, but its not a problem as steam doesnt charge anything for remote play like Microsoft does, which we see as a huge win.
Flawless Functionality: This app works seamlessly for its intended purpose, and we couldn't be happier with how well it performs. It's a testament to the developers' dedication and expertise. Free and Accessible: It's worth noting that this app is not only functional but also free to use. The generosity of the developers in providing such a valuable tool for free is commendable. Cons: None. Seriously, there's nothing to complain about here. Final Thoughts: we find it perplexing when we come across negative reviews from users who might not have fully grasped the capabilities and purpose of the Steam app. To the developers: Your work is exceptional, and your contribution to the gaming community is invaluable. Thank you for making this tool available to us. Don't be discouraged by the naysayers your dedicated users appreciate your hard work. Keep it up.
We gave it five stars because of what it makes possible never in our wildest dreams did we ever think we could play our pc games on a mobile device now we can do so on our phone that blows our mind its laggy sometimes when it works but it does work so we're staying positive in hopes that the developers can fix the issues and they will Im sure of it Im playing with the backbone one gaming controller so we cant and wont put the blame solely on the developer of steam link but like we said we love the app and we love the direction it is taking us Ive been a gamer for 35 years and Ive seen gaming start and Ive been lucky enough to see it get to where it is today we have faith in the gaming industry and the developers that make it happen keep up the great job with this app.
They have fixed almost any and all major problems with steam link, we just hope they add voice chat to steam chat mobile, also make it to where you can full screen on steam stream.
Steamlink is by far our number 1 go to for remote streaming of our pc. Its better then Alot of competition and is by far the MOST easiest to set up again compared to others such as Moonlight. The only issues we had are the green screen which we fixed which we believe was due to resolution and video settings but most recently we had lost all audio in app it can pick up our mic but no sound can be heard BELIEVE ME yes we tried everything in steam, on pc, sound settings, audio inputs etc etc hours spent and we cant for the love of us fix this issue its not our pc because it works using other applications only steam-link we come to believe this is a actual bug which im not surprised too because yall do have issues when it comes to the microphone making audio sound distorted but this is a whole new issue please address yall issues and we hope to see Steamlink improve in the future for now we have a work around by opening up remote desktop to get audio while letting Steamlink capture our mic but please we hope to see this issue fixed in the future thank you so much for offering Steamlink again it is a life changer.
This is very good but the controls are a bit weird and hard and some controls like crouch dont work a lot of the time overall pretty good.
When using a controller the software works great. It does have some strange issues going from full screen to creating a second desktop but that's here nor there. The thing does it's job. If you're a KB mouse user it's where the issue begins. When you hold a letter key, let's say E, you will able to call diacritic marks among other things. Well Steam Link pick up on this and it is very annoying holding the WASD and seeing that in the screen. Only reason we don't score it 5.
The only problem we have is that why cant you just sign in to your steam account to play your games? Like it just seems like a weird choice to have to connect to your pc and be in the same Wi-Fi when you could just sign in and play them? This is a MOBILE APP not a next to your pc app. And yes we know you can connect to your TV but we think our argument still makes sense.
This app finds and connects to our PC just fine. But it lovessss finding our last nerve and dancing on it. We didn't expect it to be this bad since the Steam application works smooth as silk. Its honestly just unforgivable at this point. Random black screens but the audio still passes through, random latency spikes so bad that fps turns to spf, resolution gore, the annoying menu sounds oh god please make them stop, the unintuitive layout. Steam Link is just a Frankensteins monster of bad programming and design. Honestly yall, its not terrible, but it sure is frustrating to use sometimes. We would say it works fine 90% of the time. Ill add 1 more star. And no Valve, its not our LAN connection thats bad, our router is 10 feet away, were done with that excuse.
- Auto-resolution matching on the iPad! 2. Oversized cursor.
We really need this function!So we can play games with HDR.
The app works well until its time to game. Our backbone controller seems to not get detected when games launch on both our Mac and PC steam clients. Which is unfortunate, because if this app worked it would be as if we had a mini steam deck in our pocket.
1: why is this 17+ 2: every time we quit out, steam on pc defaults to a white screen and we have to close out of it using task manager.
What is the point of using this if you need to be on the same internet and you have that computer in your area.
We started using it with one PC and streaming to Mac which work ok. But then tried to add a second gaming PC we own and all got broken.
Whenever we click the screen keyboard option, it just makes a keyboard on the screen, but, it just makes us restart the game, it makes everything black except the keyboard. So we cant even type in games anymore.
When using an iPad that connects to an external monitor, the steam link app launches a black screen on the iPad and outputs the stream on the external monitor. However when using a mouse, it is unusable on the external monitor as it is trapped within an invisible barrier of the iPad screen and not the entirety of the external monitor. Changing the resolution of the stream to match the iPad doesnt solve the issue. In addition whether using stage manager or duplicating the iPad display, the result is always the same. There seems to be no way to get the mouse to properly use the external monitor without being locked in the iPad screen. We believe its an issue of scaling or a bug, if the mouse scales with the external display it should be fine. Please look into this valve. Otherwise app functions fine if it is in the iPad screen only. Has trouble lowering resolution on the fly if the network is bad.
Worked fine until it didnt our wifi gets 200mbps downloads but it cant stream a ps2 game are you kidding us.
We no longer use the app, as the native steam app that we install for OS X streams the games from our PC to our Mac. So, why do people even use this anymore.
We love steamlink and have used it for awhile now. We recently got an Apple TV and it works great. Only thing is that we use air play for our audio priamerly (HDMI runs to our projector which does not have audio out) and steam link airplay does not seem to work. Not sure why, would love it to work but alass, we are looking for other solutions.
When u copy some text and then open this app, u cant connect with your pc, because u have allow insertion and then endlessly.
The app is ok but has awful lag. The connection to our computer via the internet and WiFi needs to be better.
No way for Steam VR to run on Mac even with Windows installed on it. Seems like it has to be native, so it would be great to have support for it.
As soon as we connect steam link to our SD in game mode it immediately resets the deck, making this app completely unusable in game mode. We're using the latest version of steam link and steam os as of this review.
Steam Link used to be good over a low latency network connection, but it has been very buggy for awhile. Connected 10 gig ethernet between our Mac Studio and Windows PC (the Steam network check shows best quality possible) and it lags, clips part of the view, and the DualSense controller is glitchy in the interface. It is nice to see things like 4K streaming and HEVC added, but it isn't useable in its current form.
Somehow this is the best and worst thing ever. When it works we absolutely love it. We can play our pc games while laying in our bed or on the go, but they have a TERRIBLE habit of breaking the app to where its pretty much unusable for us before they fix it after a long time to just turn around and break it again. Before this latest Big update we could play just about anything with our controller. Now we hardly can play any of our games with a controller without it freaking out. Example our layout is basic fps layout but when we stream to steam links A, B, RT and several other buttons will ALL be jump even if we redo our controller mapping. It honestly feels like they are pushing updates and not testing it before releasing it.
To start with the app is pretty decent and super easy to set up but the main thing the app is for it doesnt really do to great at, when you try to play games by streaming it to another device the delay in what your doing is unbearable, for example if your playing a shooter game your aim will be left or right and never centered accuracy wise. For the most part it works but if your playing something that requires you to look around your not going to be able to do much with it. Graphics wise from what your streaming also doesnt come through as much as someone may like but we mean if you think about it, its basically what youd expect. When streaming your going to get stream lag where it will stop and start again but it doesnt last more than a second. Sorry this isnt well written but just thought Id say these few things Another thing Ill apologize for is the stars Im giving this app.
Immediately synced up and worked great on our iPad Pro plus Switch Pro Controller. Tried the Apple TV app though and it wont work. Connects and loads fine, but you literally cant control any of the UI. Theres a stupid little mouse cursor, on our 75 TV screen, but even when you manage to get it to something you cant select anything! Totally useless. What a disappointment.
We cant get it to work at all. Disconnects all the time. There are apps that work perfectly that can mirror down to the nano second but dont work for gaming. We just dont understand why this cant be done.
Cant always switch between touch screen controller layouts. Sometimes bugs and gets stuck on one for one for games when not in game. Pls give us the ability to map buttons as desired like you have with steam controller.
It works. More or less. Big Picture Mode is extra dumb but you can disable it in settings. Once you've done that you can use it as glorified remote desktop and play whatever games you want. The Apple TV client is pretty solid, the MacOS app has weird sound issues, choppy, volume weirdness. It's been a known issue for years, there's no known good fix. It just kind of happens someitmes… You can play games remotely, usually well enough, but you'll get lag and the screen with sometimes lag and give a network interuption issue despite a cabled, gig connection or Wifi 7/6Ghz. It's just… Not as solid as it should be, Makes us think that Steam puts their jounor devs on this for trainging or something. It just isn't as well developed as some remote apps like Moonlight or Jump that have single devs.
We recently got a Backbone controller for our phone so we can play games while on downtime at work. Xbox lets you stream your games just fine but Steam. Nope, not a chance. If we could play our Steam games on our laptop reliably while at work, why in the world would we want to play them on our phone?! Steam needs to get it together and make it so you can play your games on your phone if you want without having to link to a computer first.
When we first got this and why we got this is because our steam password doesnt work but one problem it keeps disconnecting idk if its our internet or is it the game.
We use steam link to remote in when Im at work. It doesnt work any more and hasnt in at least 5-6 months. Not sure why, probably needs an update or two.
We gave up and switched to Moonlight. There's just basic things like the inability to release our mouse cursor so we can click on apps on our second monitor. Also, it doesn't handle resolution changes well. Parts of the streaming screen get blocked off and we can't move our mouse cursor there anymore. It is also fairly unstable. It's basically the iPad app on macOS, which can be fine. It's too bad, it would be a great simple streaming client, but it needs some TLC.
Its honestly to laggy all the time. We feel like the gameplay is too delayed and its almost impossible to play but atleast its something.
The Dualshock 4 controller reconnects every 5 seconds! Please fix it.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.3.19
- Size: 54.31 MB
- iOS: 11.0 or later
- Languages: BG, CS, DA, NL, EN, FI, FR, DE, EL, HU, ID, IT, JA, KO, NB, PL, PT, RO, RU, ZH, ES, SV, TH, ZH, TR, UK, VI
- Content Advisory: Unrestricted Web Access
- Developer: Valve Corporation
Last updated: 14th November 2025 | Genre: Entertainment | Developer: Valve Corporation