You can now play Game Boy carts on your Steam Deck

The Steam Deck might be able to play modern AAA games on the go, but you should really crack out some classics of yesteryear from time to time too. It’s fun to see that there’s now a way to play old Game Boy Advance cartridges on Valve’s handheld, and they actually make the games look pretty sweet to boot. No, this isn't Valve following up their Switch emulator gaffe. Wave hello to the GB Operator.

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GB Operator is an adaptor for GBA cartridges that lets you run them on PC. The device’s creators, Epilogue, have been testing out whether it works with Steam Deck recently. Epilogue tweeted that they’ve checked the GB Operator and its Operator app on the handheld PC, and it’s “fully compatible”. To prove it, they shared a photo of Mario Kart: Super Circuit – my second-favourite Mario Kart – running on a Deck.

It’s not a perfectly portable experience due to the trailing wire from the GB Operator, but if you’re sat about feeling antsy for some Advance Wars, Golden Sun, or, I dunno, Street Fighter Alpha 3: Upper, then it seems like a convenient enough option. You can even use the Game Boy camera, as it works with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games too. Epilogue say they’re hoping to make versions of the adaptor for other consoles in the future. You can read more about how to connect a GB Operator to Steam Deck here.

There’s more info about GB Operator on Epilogue’s site here. The adaptor would set you back around £44/$50/€51.