The Steam Deck has a ton of customization capabilities and the startup movies have become a huge part of that. Initially, you couldn’t really change the boot animation for the Steam Deck. You were stuck with what Valve came up with. While it is nice, it was just, kind of basic. And that’s perfectly ok, but many users had a desire for adding in their own creations.
A quick scroll through the Steam Deck subreddit and you’ll likely find posts showing off the no doubt hours and hours of effort put into making these neat little startup videos. There’s even an entire subreddit called SteamDeckBootVids dedicated to them.
My new personal favorite is this masterful execution of an MCU style startup movie from reddit user SomethingOfAGirl. This PS2 animation is also really nice. The point is, lots of users out there have come up with some really awesome stuff. The only issue is that there just wasn’t a baked in way from Valve to apply all these cool creations. But Valve is finally ready to dip its toes into the water and correct that. Today Valve has announced that Steam Deck startup movies are a built-in feature. You can even purchase some from the first batch of movies in the Steam Points Shop for 3,000 points each.
Custom Steam Deck startup movies are still supported
Valve’s own list of animations is kind of sparse at the moment. With only 21 options to choose from. Though Valve will no doubt release more over time. The good news for custom animation users is that those will be supported still, too. And if you have them stored in the steamui/overrides/movies/ directory, they’ll show up in the new built-in area along with the ones you can grab off the points shop.
Making this whole process, way, way easier than it ever was. And with the feature now part of the standard experience, you can easily swap between movies on the fly. Change to a new one every week if you want all with really minimal effort.
🎧 Here’s a quick look at the new Steam Deck startup movies that just went live in the Point Shop! Learn more about official startup movies in today’s update: https://t.co/2J1Sjskse1pic.twitter.com/KmxY3W8MnE
— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) March 16, 2023