We Can Now Easily Play Minecraft Splitscreen On The Steam Deck Thanks to a New Script

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Playing Minecraft on the Steam Deck has been a dream come true for me. I love playing the game, but I can only play with mods. On the Steam Deck, I can finally play it on the go with the mods I want to. It's awesome, and it's even more awesome when playing with friends. However, someone on Reddit wanted to play split screen with their son, and now, we will be able to play for ourselves easily as well!

Redditor ArnoldSmith86 wanted to play Minecraft with their son, and decided to create the minecraft-splitscreen script. This script automatically detects how many external controllers are connected, launches the appropriate number of Minecraft instances, automatically arranges the windows, and removes all window borders. This gives you the chance to play Minecraft with someone on the same screen, which is pretty amazing.

To get this working, there is a bit of a setup. You have to install a couple of programs and set up the Minecraft instances, which is done with PollyMC (DRM-free launcher), installing Forge and the Framework mod, coping different instances, downloading the script, downloading and using the disable Steam controller script, and manually adding it to Steam. However, once done, running the script will automatically do its thing, and it works in Game Mode as well!

The instructions for this are on GitHub.

In their Reddit post, they do mention the Steam Deck struggles a bit while everyone loads the chunks, but it seems very playable with up to four people. I'm sure playing with tons of mods in splitscreen may not be doable due to the added RAM usage for multiple instances, but for Vanilla or minor modpacks, this could be quite playable. I can see myself hooking the Deck up to my TV and playing Minecraft this way with a friend, which could be fun. I haven't had a moment to try this for myself, but it's hard not to appreciate the possibility!

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