Multiplayer on a single steam deck before buy

[ZioCactus]

Im planning to gift for my wife bd a steam deck with dock for projector but the question is. can we play game with 2 external controller that is not split screen but also online multiplayer and lan multiplayer? basically with 2 different steam account on the same deck or in some tricky way is there any possibilities?
thanks for the answer and be quick -27 days!!

[bean]

No, you can't have more than one account running online at a time on a steam deck and even if you were able to do some magic code-fu to get it to run two clients you said no split-screen mp the hardware would only be able to do that for very old or small games.

[ReBoot]

If a game supports that, you can. If a game doesn't, you can't. Just like on any other PC, by the way.

Well, it's not like there's no way at all whatsoever, the Deck is a PC and you can do a lot of tricky ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on PCs, but I doubt you'll have much fun. This will take a load of work and you'll still need a second terminal. You're better off sticking to games that support same-device MP to begin with.

[Astral]

Here's basically your question, can you play a game for 2 people to play with only 1 PC as if it was 2 PCs?
Honestly, there's hardly any device capable to do that out of the box and it would require you to have 2 monitors and the computer to be able to correctly assign the controls for each game.

[Haruspex]

2 instances of the same game, running on two different Steam accounts, running on a low-powered, 15 watt portable PC. The logistics of such a feat are difficult even on a more powerful system. I wouldn't even consider it.

However there are plenty of games out there that support local multiplayer, like the good old couch multiplayer games on consoles of old. Plug in a couple of controllers and have a good time.

https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Local%20Multiplayer

Another possibility is to get two decks. This is what I've done. Actually, originally I only had one but the wife wanted to try it out. I put her account on there and handed it over. Before I knew it she was hooked and I realized it was her Deck now. I ordered a second one for myself, and now we enjoy networked multiplayer on our own respective Steam Decks. I highly recommend it.