Steam Deck Cloud Save Workaround

Steam's Cloud Save breaks on KOTOR due to a 10MB limit. This guide walks you through how to replicate the feature on a Steam Deck using the Decky Cloud Save plugin.

How to Setup Decky Cloud Save Plugin

These are steps you have to follow on your Steam Deck and any PCs you want to sync with.

Steam Deck

These steps need to be done on the Steam Deck. This process will involve switching between Game Mode and Desktop multiple times. You just need some basic knowledge of running a bash script on Linux.

• Switch to desktop mode and install Decky.
  
  • https://decky.xyz/
• Switch back to gaming mode and install Decky Cloud Save in the plugin store
  
• Switch back to desktop mode and run the setup scripts for your provider (I use google cloud)
  
  • In a terminal navigate to

    /home/deck/homebrew/plugins/deck-cloud-save/quickstart/

  • Run

    chmod +x google_drive.sh

  • Run

    bash ./google_drive.sh

  • Your browser should open for you to authenticate with Google. Proceed with authentication.
• Switch back to gaming mode and go to the Decky Cloud Save plugin.
  
• Add a sync path

  /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/swkotor/saves

• Enable bidirectional sync if you want to sync saves from PC to Deck
  
• Click Sync Now
  
• I got an error initially. If this happens then view the error and using the touchscreen click Resync Now.
  
• Wait. This is slow for me, ~5 minutes.
  
• Done. Unfortunately I think you have to manually click Sync Now whenever you want to switch between Deck and PC. Auto sync only seems to work on games without native cloud support.

PC

These steps need to be done on any PC you want to sync with. You can skip this if you just want to backup your saves one way.

• Download and install your provider's Windows app. I use Google Drive which sets up a G:/ drive with a local way to access your files.
  
• Navigate to your KOTOR save directory.
  
  • It depends on where you install your games but my path is

    D:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\swkotor\

• Cut and paste the saves directory to anywhere else (just in case).
  
• Navigate to your backup in another window. My path was

  G:\My Drive\decky-cloud-save\home\deck\.local\share\Steam\steamapps\common\swkotor

• Now symlink the saves folder from your drive over to your local install of KOTOR.
  
  • I use Link Shell Extension for this. Once installed, you can symlink files/folders through the right click context menu in Explorer.
    
  • https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

This should give you a similar cloud sync. It's just slower and not automatic.