Get started

Installation

What you need before enabling the plugin, and how to set it up.

Before you enable the plugin

You need four things. Two are required, two depend on what you are building.

Unreal Engine 5.7. The plugin is built against 5.7. Other versions are not supported.

The Steam client, installed and logged in. Steam features are provided by the Steam client, not by the plugin. If Steam is not running, SteamForge reports itself unavailable and every node returns a safe default instead of crashing. You can still work in the editor, see testing without Steam.

A Steam App ID, if you want real Steam and not the mock. You get one by putting your game on Steam through the partner site. For trying things out you can use 480, which is Spacewar, Valve's public test app.

WARNING: App ID 480 is shared with everyone on Steam. Its stats, leaderboards and lobbies are public, full of strangers, and its cloud quota is 4096 bytes. It is fine for a first look. It is not fine for anything you care about.

A Steamworks SDK, only if the plugin did not ship with one. SteamForge never compiles against the SDK, it only needs the redistributable library at runtime. Any recent version works.

Install the plugin

Copy the SteamForge folder into your project's Plugins folder. Create that folder if the project does not have one.

Open the project. If Unreal asks to rebuild, let it.

Go to Edit > Plugins, search for SteamForge, and make sure it is enabled.

Restart the editor.

Set your App ID

Go to Edit > Project Settings > Plugins > SteamForge and set Steam App Id.

That is the only setting you must change. Everything else has a working default.

INFO: SteamForge writes steam_appid.txt next to the executable for you. In the editor that is the engine's binary folder, not your project folder. Getting that file wrong by hand is the usual reason Steam works in a packaged build but not in the editor, so leave Manage Steam App Id File on and let the plugin handle it.

Settings worth knowing about

Setting	What it does
Steam App Id	Your game's App ID. Leave at 0 to inherit one from OnlineSubsystemSteam.
Mock Mode	Runs against the built in fake Steam. See First steps.
Preload Steam Before RHI	On by default. Initialises Steam early so the overlay can attach. See The Steam overlay.
Restart Through Steam If Needed	Shipping only. Relaunches the game through Steam if the player started it another way.
Release Steam Session When PIE Ends	On by default. Stops the editor competing with a Standalone Game for your App ID.

Verify it worked

Press Play and open the console with the tilde key, then run:

code

steam.Status

You should see Available: yes. If you do not, go to First steps, which explains every line of that output.