Steam Deck: Working Offline Mode + Achievements

Here's how to play Mass Effect with offline mode and actually earn achievements on your Steam Deck. Also a few tips on Cloud Save support

Introduction

NOTE: I can confirm these instructions currently work as of March 19th 2023.

EA have updated Mass Effect to force the EA app, which now breaks both Offline Mode and Achievements for the Steam Deck (and everyone else too, this isn't specific to Steam Deck).

Personally I don’t mind updating to EA App, but my frustrations are that we’re being forced to update to it before it’s actually working. The achievements bug means people won’t get achievements in ME2/ME3 and there’s some issues with progression because of this too. The Offline Mode is absolutely necessary if you want to play the games anywhere other than somewhere with a perfect connection. For example I used this method so I can play Mass Effect on the plane.

Step 1: Uninstall EA App OR Origin (if you've already tried playing the game before)

Remove: EA App

If you've already tried to play the game recently without any workaround attempts, you'll likely have the EA App installed. In that case, follow the steps below:

Navigate to the following directory:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/Program Files/Electronic Arts/EA Desktop/EA Desktop

If the file EAUninstall.exe exists, "Right click" (most likely for you, by pressing the left-trigger) and choose "Add to Steam".

Find EAUninstall.exe within your library back in Steam (just click the Steam icon on the taskbar and choose Library).

Right-click to edit EAUninstall.exe's properties, and set it's launch options to the following:

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670" %command%

Go to the compatibility tab and choose “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”

Start EAUninstall.exe from your library.

Press and hold the Steam button in order to use the mouse, and just follow the dialogues to uninstall.

Right-click EAUninstall.exe from your Steam library and choose "Manage", then "Remove non-steam game" to remove this.

Remove: Origin

If you've already tried to do a workaround, you will likely have Origin installed already. In that case, follow these steps:

Navigate to the following directory:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/Program Files/Origin

If the file OriginUninstall.exe exists, "Right click" (most likely for you, by pressing the left-trigger) and choose "Add to Steam".

Find OriginUninstall.exe within your library back in Steam (just click the Steam icon on the taskbar and choose Library).

Right-click to edit OriginUninstall.exe's properties, and set it's launch options to the following:

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670" %command%

Go to the compatibility tab and choose “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”

Start OriginUninstall.exe from your library.

Press and hold the Steam button in order to use the mouse, and just follow the dialogues to uninstall.

Right-click OriginUninstall.exe from your Steam library and choose "Manage", then "Remove non-steam game" to remove this.

Step 2: Installing the "Old" Origin client

Download the offline Origin installer (before EA made it force you to update to EA App). This is no longer available from EA (they updated the link), so I've posted the Origin setup I used myself to do this on Dropbox here: Origin offline installer[taskinoz.com]

Open the File Explorer (called Dolphin on the Steam Deck) and navigate to the downloaded setup file in your Downloads folder.

"Right click" (most likely for you, by pressing the left-trigger) the file OriginSetup.exe and click "Add to Steam".

Find OriginSetup.exe within your library back in Steam (just click the Steam icon on the taskbar and choose Library).

Right-click to edit OriginSetup.exe's properties, and set it's launch options to the following:

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670" %command%

Go to the compatibility tab and choose “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”

Start OriginSetup.exe from your library.

When the Origin installer appears, make sure you UNTICK keeping Origin and the games up to date.

After it's installed, do NOT log in. Close the installer with the X. If Steam still thinks you're "playing" after some time, just click "Stop" inside Steam.

Open the File Explorer (Dolphin on the Deck) and navigate to the following directory:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/ProgramData/Origin

Find the file called local.xml and "right-click" (most likely for you, by pressing the left-trigger) and choose "Open With...", then KWrite.

This should open the file, and at the bottom you'll find a line that says

</Settings>

Click the very end of the line above this one, open up the keyboard and just press enter to leave a new line gap (you can open the keyboard by holding the Steam button and pressing X).

Now either type or copy-paste the following line:

<Setting key="MigrationDisabled" type="1" value="true"/>

Press the "Save" button and exit the program (KWrite).

Now, we need to navigate to the following directories to ensure OriginThinSetupInternal.exe is NOT present in ALL of these directories (right-click and move to trash if you see the file):

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/ProgramData/Origin
/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/ProgramData/Origin/SelfUpdate/Staged
/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Origin

Step 3: Logging into Origin

This is the last step of work! We're almost there.

Find OriginSetup.exe in your Steam library.

Right-click this and choose Properties again.

Click "Browse" and navigate to the following directory:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1328670/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Origin

Choose the file "Origin.exe".

Ensure the "Launch Options" further down still has the STEAM_COMPAT_DATA option from the previous step.

Close the properties and run OriginSetup.exe from your Steam library.

When the Origin logon screen appears. You can navigate this with the mouse (again: you'll need to hold the Steam button in order to do this).

Firstly make sure you tick the option to keep you logged in (or you'll have to keep entering your password which will drive you nuts!).

Next, click the email address box. The keyboard should probably automatically open, but if it doesn't just hold the Steam button and press X.

Here you can type the email and password for your account. For this part, I found that I needed to use the touchpads, as using the touch screen seemed to keep closing the keyboard for some reason.

Once you've logged in, you should see Origin and there should not be any prompts to install EA App.

NOTE: You may see a bar at the top about a new version of Origin, do NOT click this and update. It's very important you never update Origin for now (until hopefully one day EA fixes these issues).

Go the the menu bar at the top, and choose "Origin" then "Exit".

Back in Steam, you're free to just launch Mass Effect and it should work as normal. Note that you may get dialogue to install EA App. If this happens just press the X in the top right and the game should still open.

If this all works correctly, you're free to remove OriginSetup.exe from your Steam library. Right-click this and choose "Manage", then "Remove non-steam game" to remove it.

Enjoy your offline mode and achievements!

BONUS: Cloud Save support notes

If you're playing Mass Effect on your Steam Deck and PC and wanting to continue progress between them, I have a few tips on how to make sure this works correctly.

• Never quit Mass Effect using the Steam force quit feature (i.e. when you choose exit game in the Steam menu) - always quit using the in-game menu systems. (This is because it will interrupt the cloud save upload process done by Origin when quitting the game).
  
  
• If any time you use Steam Deck suspend and then continue playing on the Deck, you'll need to do the following: quit the game, then quit the launcher and when you're back in Steam, just re-launch the game again and you'll be safe to quit once more when the Launcher screen appears. The reason you need to do this is because when you quit the game, the save will not be uploaded correctly to Origin (suspend puts Origin into Offline mode), but re-launching will upload your save as the game launches back up.

BONUS: How to apply these steps to other EA App forced games

The steps above should work exactly the same for other games that EA have patched to force the EA App. It's worth noting that you will need to follow the steps separately for each game as the way Proton works internally, you're technically installing Origin in each game's separate Proton fake-Windows folder structure.

Note that wherever you see the number 1328670 above, you'll need to replace this with the game's specific "AppID". You can easily find this by going to the game's store page in Steam, and in the URL you'll see the AppID for that game. For example, when going to the Mass Effect Legendary Edition steam page you'll see the URL is:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1328670/Mass_Effect_Legendary_Edition
As you can see, the AppID here is 1328670 as mentioned earlier.

e.g. Dragon Age Inquisition's Steam URL is:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222690/Dragon_Age_Inquisition
Therefore the AppID is 1222690.

[Kiko D Awesome]

Ya this sadly no longer works

[Benpage11]

I can confirm and say this no longer works…

[Saigaiii]

Does not work anymore sadly. Trying to login during the last step gives "You must be online when logging in for the first time". Error. Maybe someone can find an alternative, otherwise going to have to deal with the launcher.

[Praidas]

This doesn't work anymore. Is there any other ways to remove EA cancer from mass effect?

[sunofpearl89]

Origin is shutting down and will no longer launch games in April. Thus making piracy the only way to play offline. EA pls stop being retarded. Update your app to work offline.

[Benpage11]

So with EA shutting down origin in April. Will this still work? I’m worried that it no longer will after the shutdown

[AeliusAnonymous]

Works on Fedora. Had to do step 3 differently, Deleted the OriginSetup.exe from Steam Library, and added Origin as a non Steam app directly, with GE- Proton 9-10 set in compatibility.

[Quadsword]

So I have no idea what to do for step 3. There's two "browse" options under properties - one for target and one for "start in". I tried changing the target to Origin.exe and nothing happens when I start it.

[Drac]

For anyone trying this and can't get the EXE files to launch:
When you set the "Force proton" option, you must select one of the GE options GE-Proton8-3 or above OR Proton Experimental!

Refer to the guide by |PsʏcʜoᴛɪcHousᴇCᴀᴛ|. After following that guide and this one, I can confirm that it is indeed working as of today, 21 August 2024 with current updates from Steam.

[Uninstall Wizard]

Thank you so much for this! Using your guide and |PsʏcʜoᴛɪcHousᴇCᴀᴛ|'s guide, I was able to get this working on my Steam Deck without issues. I did have to use the F*** Off EA app to get this to work, but it's working beautifully.