How to ship a web game on Steam
2 min read
By Eduardo Orellana ·
Steam installs and launches desktop programs, so an HTML5 game ships wrapped in one: Electron or NW.js bundle Chromium (large but predictable, with Steamworks bridges such as Greenworks or steamworks.js), while Tauri and WebView2-based wrappers use the system's web view (small, but the engine varies by machine). Pick a wrapper with a maintained Steamworks bridge if you need achievements or the overlay, test offline play and fullscreen, and ship a Linux build or test under Proton for the Steam Deck.
Steam does not run web pages
A game made for the browser has to become a program before Steam can install it. That is all a wrapper does: open a window, load your game's HTML inside a browser engine, and give you access to the file system and, through a bridge, to Steam.
The wrappers
- Electron: bundles Chromium and Node.js. Large download, same behaviour everywhere; steamworks.js is a maintained Steam bridge.
- NW.js: also Chromium plus Node; what RPG Maker uses, with Greenworks as the Steam bridge.
- Tauri: uses the system web view (WebView2 on Windows); small builds, Rust backend for native calls.
- Engine exports: Construct's WebView2 export and similar, with the engine's own Steam plugin.
What to check
- The game works with no internet, from local files.
- Fullscreen, window resizing and the Steam overlay all behave.
- Saves go to the user's app data folder, not browser storage that can be cleared.
- On the Steam Deck: a Linux build, or test the Windows build under Proton.
- The Steam bridge is maintained for your wrapper's version.
Where Flockbay fits
Flockbay builds games on Godot, which exports native desktop builds for Steam directly, with no wrapper. Its publishing tools work for a web game too, free in beta until 1 December 2026.