Chromebooks were never intended for gaming, and the thought of gaming-focused Chromebooks raises a few questions. Most games, naturally are very taxing on both the GPU and the processor, two things that are severely underpowered in most Chromebooks.
There exist Chromebook detachables that offer a good Android gaming experience, but these feel like an added bonus rather than a focus for the device. Leveraging game streaming services like Google Stadia and GeForce Now, Chromebook users have also had access to mainstream PC games, but getting full games from Steam running on these devices has always been a pipe dream.
However, this might be changing with a report from 9to5Google, revealing three codenames for what they believe are gaming Chromebooks due to the presence of RGB keyboards on all three.
Chromebooks have been with us for a long time, almost ten years, but none flaunts an RGB keyboard or even a discrete GPU that is capable of playing PC games natively.
9to5Google first uncovered a new RGB keyboard flag in Chrome OS, but further digging revealed the feature was associated with a specific trio of Chromebook codenames. The per-key RGB lighting flag can be found with Chromebook’s codenamed Vell, Taniks and Ripple.
The first two Chromebooks feature Intel 12th generation Alder Lake processors and are believed to be an HP Omen and Lenovo Legion Chromebook, respectively. The final codename is more of a mystery. It is identified as a detachable, but there are no clear indicators regarding which manufacturer is making the Chromebook.
The report reveals that each keyboard key can be individually customized to a user’s liking to change the intensity of the red, green and blue lighting to create different colours and adjust the keyboard’s overall backlight brightness. Currently, this is only still possible through an internal command for Chrome OS developers in testing. However, 9to5google reckons that in time, there will be a tool within Chrome OS to let gamers change the colours of their keyboards.
Chromebooks have been with us for a long time, almost ten years, but none flaunts an RGB keyboard or even a discrete GPU that is capable of playing PC games natively. This further solidifies the theory that the RGB keyboards in development are intended for fully pledged gaming Chromebooks.
Furthermore, limited hardware is not the only thing holding back Chromebooks from playing games. Chromebooks run on Chrome OS, a Linux based operating system. This means you can not just fire up Steam and play through your Windows PC library. This might change in the future.
Chrome OS developers are on the record that they have been working to bring Steam to Chrome OS, with the help of Valve. There is also a project codenamed Borealis that has been in development to get Steam and other Linux compatible PC games to run on a virtual machine on Chromebooks.
AndroidPolice believes Borealis could launch in the coming weeks. Despite the various leaks and findings, Google has not yet put out a statement regarding Steam games arriving on Chromebook. It is believed Steam will be a permanent addition to the Chrome OS settings menu, and the game client could even come preinstalled on compatible Chrome OS devices.
