How to install Ascension on Steam Deck - 100% working 2026 guide
I spent the past few days trying to get Ascension working properly on Steam Deck so I decided to put together a guide on how I did it since it's not always intuitive and there's a lot of places where the installation can go wrong, especially with the controller support.
👍👍👍👍👍 What you will need for this installation to work:
- A working PC installation of Ascension.
- Winpinator installed on your PC to send the Ascension files.
- Warpinator installed on your Steam Deck desktop to receive the files.
- ProtonUp-QT installed on your Steam Deck desktop.
- ConsolePortLK to make the controller portion work.
- A basic knowledge of how to use your Steam Deck desktop and ability to follow simple commands.
🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫 What I DO NOT recommend for this installation:
Lutris. Uninstall it. I tried about 50 different ways to get Ascension working on Steam Deck using Lutris and it was all a giant waste of time. Uninstall it. Don't waste your time. It's a massive headache that is going to lead to nowhere.
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With that out of the way I will take you step by step through the entire process. I will make it so easy a monkey could do it, which should be helpful for a lot of you.
🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒 Full installation Guide:
Step 1 -
Download Ascension from the official website to your PC. Open the 'Ascension-Setup-(xxx).exe'
Step 2 -
Choose destination folder. REMEMBER WHERE YOU PUT THE PROGRAM. This is important. If you use the default destination which is something like C:/Program Files/Ascension then remember that. If you forget where you put it later you're going to have to start over.
Step 3 -
Run the Ascension Launcher after it has been installed. If you did it correctly, it will ask you to login to the website. You need to make an account if you don't already have one which means remembering your username and password. Choose a password you will remember or your life will be hell, especially once you switch to Steam Deck. On Steam Deck you have to re-input your Username and Password again, so if you forget, you've trolled yourself.
Step 4 - Tell the Ascension client where to download World of Warcraft. Make sure it's in the same folder as the Launcher. So if you did it correctly, your file architecture should look something like C:/Program Files/Ascension/Resources/Ascension-Live. Wait for all the files to download, it's something like 45 gigs so depending on your internet speed, this could take awhile.
Step 5 - Navigate on your PC to the ConsolePortLK releases page on Github. This is a step that won't make sense until much later but just trust me.
Step 6 - Download ConsolePortLK-1.4.0.zip from the release page (or whatever the latest version is).
Step 7 - Open the zip file with your favorite unzipper program. It will have 8 folders within it. You will unzip all of those folders to a particular place within your Ascension architecture. For me it was C:\Program Files\Ascension\resources\ascension-live\Interface\AddOns. If you did it correctly the 8 folders from the ConsolePortLK zip file will now exist in your AddOns directory. Once you have unzipped the files into the correct directory you are finished this this part.
Step 8 - Download Winpinator on your PC. Install Winpinator. It's a tiny program, it's very user friendly.
Step 9 - Open Winpinator after it's been installed. Go to file, preferences in the program. Click on the Connection tab. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. For your Steam Deck and PC to see each other, they need to be sharing the same group code. It doesn't matter what the code is, but it has to be the same on both Winpinator on your PC and Warpinator on your Steam Deck. I set my group code to 1234.
Step 10 - Choose your correct Network interface. Make sure that it is the actual device you use to connect to your home network. If you choose the incorrect network adapter, this will not work. You can see I am using my wired connection aka Ethernet Controller. But if you have a laptop or are in another room, you will be using your Wifi card to connect to the network. Please make sure the network settings are correct here or it will not work.
Step 11 - Turn on your Steam Deck. Press the Steam button. Navigate to the Steam Desktop mode.
Step 12 - Open Start Menu on the Steam Deck desktop, navigate to the Discover Store. Find Warpinator and download it. It is a pretty small program, it should only take a few minutes to install.
Step 13 - Open Warpinator in your Steam Deck. Go to the settings as you did with the PC. Find the Connections tab. Make sure you are using the same Group Code on both devices. Again, I used 1234. Also, make sure that both devices are connected to the same Wifi network.
Step 14 - If you did everything correctly, then you will be able to see your Steam Deck on the Windows Winpinator screen and vice versa. It should look like this:
If you see this screen then you configured Warpinator correctly on both devices and you should now be able to send files between them.
Step 15 - Once Ascension has fully downloaded World of Warcraft, you will copy the ENTIRE Ascension folder at C:/Program Files/Ascension (or wherever you put it) into Winpinator and send it to your Steam Deck. Again, it will be around 45 gigs will all the files downloaded.
Step 16 - Once you have sent the files from Winpinator to your Steam Deck, you will have to accept the files from the Steam Deck interface for the files to start transferring. Depending on your network speed, 45 gigs could some time.
Step 17 - Once your files are finished transferring from the PC to Steam Deck, open the Dolphin or File Manager app within the Steam Deck desktop and search for your downloads folder on the left. You should have a Warpinator folder within your downloads folder, and here is where all your transferred files will be. If you did everything correctly, you will now have a 45 gig "Ascension" folder sitting inside your Warpinator folder.
Step 18 - Drag the Ascension folder somewhere you will remember within your Steam Deck file architecture. I have a dedicated "Games" folder where I put all my Non-Steam games, but you can put it anywhere you want, just remember where you put it.
Step 19 - Open the Ascension folder on your Steam Deck and in the base folder there will be a program called "Ascension Launcher.exe". You will right click (left trigger) that file and select "Add to Steam".
Step 20 - Open the Discover store again through the Steam Deck start menu. Look for a program called ProtonUp-QT. Install it.
Step 21 - Once ProtonUp-QT is installed, open it. A small window will appear in the center of your screen. You will navigate to the "Add Version" button. This will open up an "Install Compatibility Tool" window. You will select from the dropdown menu, Compatibility-Tool: GE-Proton. For the Version you will select GE-Proton10-28. You will click Install. You will wait for it to download.
Step 22 - Once GE-Proton10-28 is downloaded, it will appear in your list of downloaded versions within the ProtonUP-QT program. It should say (unused) next to it. After it has been successfully downloaded you will need to restart your Steam Deck so that it now recognizes the new GE-Proton10-28 version you just downloaded.
Step 23 - Once your Steam Deck has been restarted, go back into desktop mode, we are almost finished.
Step 24 - Open up your Steam library by clicking the Steam icon in the bottom right corner of your screen, where the Linux interface puts the taskbar.
Step 25 - With your Steam library open, you should now have a shortcut called "Ascension-Launcher.exe" in your list of games now. You will right click that (left trigger) and open it in properties. The first tab that should open up is the "Shortcuts" tab, and we will start here.
Step 26 - The first thing you will need to do is rename it to World of Warcraft. This is important in order to find the correct controller configs we will need later to play it properly using the Steam Deck integrated controls.
Step 27 - After you have renamed the shortcut to World of Warcraft, you need to navigate down to the Launch Options tab and enter this text exactly as written: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="DivxTac.dll=d" %command%
The reason you are adding this launch command is that DivxTac.dll, a file in the Ascension WoW architecture, causes the Steam Deck to be unable to properly load the game.
You could just delete this file from the Ascension-Live folder, but every time the Launcher updates, it will simply redownload this file and suddenly Ascension will hang again. This step is non-negotiable. 90% of the people who are unable to run Ascension WoW properly on Steam Deck is because they are skipping this step.
Step 28 - Click on the Compatibility tab just below Shortcut. Click the check box. Open the drop down menu. Find the GE-Proton-10-28 we downloaded earlier and select it. Close the properties window.
Step 29 - Press Play on the Steam library and launch the game. If you did everything correctly, the Ascension Launcher will pop up and it will ask you to login to the server/game again. Since you followed Step 3 faithfully, you remembered your username and password and will simply retype it in the Steam Deck interface so that you can painlessly access the Ascension servers and launch the game.
Step 30 - If you did everything correctly, you will now be at the main menu screen of the Ascension WoW client and can login a 3rd time with your credentials so that you can access your current servers and characters.
If you've made it this far, the game is working properly and you've passed the most difficult part, so pat yourself on the back. Everything after this is just configuration options and getting the Steam Deck controller working correctly, but the hard part is over.
Step 31 - I highly recommend go into the options of the main menu and reducing some of the graphic settings so that you don't burn through your Steam Deck's entire battery in a matter of minutes while you aren't plugged in. If you are a power user who always has the Steam Deck plugged in, or streams to your TV, you can skip this part. If you use your Steam Deck like a mobile device, I highly encourage you to reduce your settings.
👍PRO TIP - Reduce the video settings one at a time then hit 'apply'. Do not use the global settings slider to reduce all the settings as it will cause Proton to crash and reset the graphics to the defaults.
Step 32 - Once your graphics and game settings have been adjusted, pick your server, select or create your character, and login. If you have done everything correctly up to this point, the blue loading bar will hit full, and the game will immediately transition into the world.
🚫WARNING - If you have somehow failed to disable the DivxTac.dll file as explained in Step 27, the game will hang here, and you will be unable to enter the server. You will be forced to close the game or restart your Steam Deck because it will be hard locked. The DivxTac.dll file will cause the game to be unable to load into the server, so if you get locked out of the game at this part, you know what the culprit is.
Step 33 - Because we already unzipped the ConsolePortLK mod into the Ascension Addons folder in Step 7, you should be immediately greeted with a screen that asks you to calibrate your controller when you first login. DO NOT PANIC if the game does not yet recognize your Steam Deck controls, this is expected and we will resolve it in the next step.
Step 34 - Close the game by using Escape to bring up the menu and exit. If for whatever reason you can't bring up the menu in the game, don't panic. Just hold down the Steam power button at the top of your deck and force restart the machine. Whether you close the game normally or not, the next step will require you to restart the Steam Deck so that you are now back to the normal interface when it boots back up.
Step 35 - Once the Steam Deck has been restarted, and you are back to the normal Steam Deck GUI, navigate to the World of Warcraft shortcut under your Non-Steam games category. Here is where we will setup the controller settings.
Step 36 - Open the controller layouts section and navigate to Community Layouts. You are looking for a Layout specifically designed for ConsolePortLK aka the mod we are using to make the Steam Deck Controller work on an engine designed in 2003 that did not accept controller inputs.
There are many different options that will work for this part. I used Insane Tomato's ConsolePort Official fixed. If you navigate to that link, you can open a button in the Steam interface that should take you to it. But if not you can simply scroll down the list til you find it.
Step 37 - Once you have selected a Console Port controller setup from the community layouts, press apply and launch the game.
👍PRO TIP - I know that using the Ascension Launcher every time to launch the game is annoying, but the alternative of skipping the launcher is even worse. The Ascension team updates the game sometimes several times per day, meaning that in order to play you would have to close the game and go manually update it every time. Forcing the Steam Deck to use the launcher just ends up being the more painless option overall.
🚫WARNING - If you are using Insane Tomato's setup that I shared, or many of the other popular ones, it will have moved your Left Click to L3 and Right Click to R3. Use L3 to press play on the Launcher so that you can open the game.
Step 38 - Once you are logged back into the game and have joined a server with a character, the Calibration tool will now have popped back up. Close this tool, we are not ready to use it yet.
Step 39 - Press R3 (or right mouse click) to navigate your cursor down to the chat box and type in, using the Steam deck interface (Steam+X) "/cp config". This will open the ConsolePort config screen where you can finally get the settings working properly to use your Steam Deck controller natively with the game.
Step 40 - If you have followed the directions properly a screen will open up that looks like this:
Navigate to the Settings button at the top. You will have to use R3 still and your right joystick to navigate to the outlined red button, and press L3.
Step 41 - Once you are at the settings screen, press the Controller button at the button of the screen, then click "change controller", and find the Steam Deck from the list.
Step 42 - Once the Steam Deck has been selected, navigate back to the screen you see in the screenshot above (Bindings) and press the "Import" button. Import the Steam Deck controls.
Step 43 - Now once you close this screen by pressing "Save Settings" at the bottom, you should be confronted with the Calibration Wizard once again, but this time you can actually go through the process properly.
🚫Warning - This is in many ways the most frustrating and tedious part of the entire process. It took me 2 entire days, or 48 hours, to mess with the controls until I finally got the exact settings I wanted. Don't be discouraged, it may take you some fiddling around with this part to get it exactly how you want it.
And that's it!
I didn't realize this guide was going to be 43 steps but I guess I understand now why people have such trouble getting Ascension to work on controller. Hopefully this helped some of you and if you have any questions, please post them below. Good luck!