The Steam deck (opens in a new tab) has a cool new startup screen. We've all seen those super cute animated launch screens that mimic our favorite TV shows like Frasier, Cowboy Bebop, and Futurama.

Monkey Island has been given a fan-made node as a Steam Deck startup screen, just in time for the release of the new game. There are already so many nice fan-made startup screens for Steam Deck that it is hard to choose.

Previously, if you wanted to add your own custom boot screen to Steam Deck, you had to follow a guide like the one put together by Gaming on Linux (opens in new tab). It wasn't that hard, but Valve has kindly made it easier with the latest Steam Deck client beta update (opens in new tab). (Open in new tab).

Seeing the community's eagerness for custom boot screens, the team tweaked the Steam Deck to automatically look for these files. In other words, simply create the steamui/overrides/movies/ folder in Steam Deck and throw in the boot or suspend animation video files you want to use there.

This makes adding your own boot animations much easier than before. Also, updating Steam Deck will not erase the animation. However, to opt-in to the Steam Deck beta channel, you must go to System from Settings and select the Steam Update channel.

Once you've done that, it's a good time to head over to the SteamDeckBootVids Reddit (opens in a new tab) and peruse what's on offer. Among them is Neon Genesis Evangelion Boots, created by Mat Paget of Twitter (opens in new tab), which is a great example of the kind of boot that can be found on the SteamDeckBootVids Reddit.

Since then, plenty of boot screens have been dreamed up and made real, like this fresh Star Wars intro by Redditor jaidek (opens in new tab): an entire helmet mimicking the Steam deck model, with colored lights, a "shifter," a "shifter," a "shifter," and a "shifter. The shifting is a really nice touch, a bit more modern than most we've seen.

Instead, nostalgia still flows fresh and fast. The intro is made with homages to "Back to the Future" (open in new tab), "The Real Ghostbusters" (yes, the cartoon), and even "Neo-Geo" (open in new tab). In addition, a mega-list of all console startup screens is still in the works, so you can shuffle through the nostalgia of old games on a whim.

But perhaps more importantly, this is a cool move by Valve. The community had fun with the mod feature, but instead of trying to shut it down, the developers made it even easier to add it. This will no doubt create even cooler boot screens, and it's always great to see companies nurture creativity rather than squash it.