WipEout was the game that 'sold' the original PlayStation to an entire generation of gamers, but it was also released on Sega Saturn and PC. The latter version was pretty poor, but it has redeemed itself by forming the basis of WipEout Phantom Edtiion, a new PC port which offers HD visuals, an uncapped frame rate, improved draw distance, better control and enhanced sound.
While the port is designed for PC, getting it running on your Steam Deck isn't much work – and got a handy guide below to help.
Put Your Steam Deck Into Desktop Mode
To do all of the following steps outlined below, you'll need to put your Steam Deck into Desktop Mode. To do this, you hold down the power button and then select 'Switch to Desktop' from the menu.
Once you've done this, you may have to download Firefox if you haven't done so already. This can be done by clicking the Firefox logo in the bottom-left of the screen.
Download WipEout Phantom Edition
In Firefox (or your Steam Deck web browser of choice), navigate to:
https://github.com/wipeout-phantom-edition/wipeout-phantom-edition
Download the latest release, Once you've done this, head to the Downloads folder and extract the zip file.
Find A Copy Of WipEout On PS1
Next, you'll need to locate a copy of the PS1 version of WipEout. As you can imagine, there will be copies of this circulating online, but we'd advise you to rip your own physical version of the game, if possible.
The region of the game doesn't matter, but be aware that the North American and European versions have different music.
If the copy of the game you have is zipped, unzip it to the folder of your choice.
At this stage, it doesn't hurt to check that you've got the right files to avoid any issues. You should have a folder full of .bin and .cue files, like the example shown below:
Copy all of these files, then navigate to the folder which was created when you extracted WipEout Phantom Edition (it should simply be called 'wipeout'). Inside the folder, you should see another folder called 'diskimages' – paste the PS1 files into this folder.
Add WipEout Phantom Edition To Steam
Find the wipeput.exe file in the 'wipeout' folder and right-click it, then select 'Add to Steam' from the menu.
You can now return to Gaming Mode. You'll find WipEout Phantom Edition in the 'non-Steam' section of your library.
Open Steam if you haven't done so already (there should be a shortcut on the desktop) and find WipEout Phantom Edition. Click it, then select 'Properties', then 'Compatibility'. Tick the box that says 'Force the use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool', and 'Proton Experimental' should appear as an option.
Now you can boot the game! The first time you load it up, you'll see a lot of text like this:
Don't worry; this is perfectly normal and will only happen the first time you load up the game.
Add Artwork For WipEout Phantom Edition In Steam
You may have noticed that, in its current form, WipEout Phantom Edition lacks any kind of artwork in your Steam library. Thankfully, you can overcome this using some of the Steam Deck's 'super user' functions (there's loads of info on this here).
If you haven't done so already, you'll want to install Decky Loader, which is a really useful tool for truly opening up the full potential of your device.
To install Decky Loader, drop back to Desktop Mode, click the Steam Deck icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen and search for Konsole – this is the system's command line interface.
If this is your first time using Konsole, you'll want to create a new password. Type passwd and you'll be asked to create one, as well as confirm it a second time.
When you've done that, type (or copy > paste) the following:
curl -L https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader/raw/main/dist/install_prerelease.sh | sh
Once everything is installed, you can quit out of Konsole and return to Gaming Mode.
Press the Steam Deck's menu button (the one with the three dots on the right-hand side of the screen) and you'll see an additional option in the pop-out menu, called Decky. There's a market stall icon in the top-right of the menu - tap that, and you'll be taken to the Decky Plugin Store.
Search for SteamGridDB and install it.
Once that's done, drop back out of the Decky menu and locate WipEout Phantom Edition. Select the game's options menu, and you'll notice that 'Change Artwork' has now appeared.
Select this, and you can choose the art for every element of Steam's library – including the cover art, 'hero' art and even its Steam icon and logo.
You might find that SteamGrid initially returns no results for the search term 'Wipeout', but you can filter this by pressing the X button and then tapping the title. You can then search exclusively for art relating to the 1995 release.
