The Bazzite development team has announced the official stable launch of Bazzite 44 for gaming handhelds, an immutable Linux distribution based on Fedora 44. The release supports devices from Lenovo, ASUS, MSI, and Ayaneo, among others, after a late-April delay for further development.

A major architectural shift replaces Handheld Daemon (HHD) with InputPlumber for controller support, emulation, and remapping. TDP control is now handled by SteamOS-Manager or PowerStation for unsupported devices. Notably, the Legion Go currently lacks gyro support and desktop-mode TDP control until a future update.

DeckyLoader plugins are again compatible, Game Mode now integrates Bazzite updates, and a new desktop GUI manages updates and the Bazzite Portal. Known regressions include lost RGB controls on some ASUS and Ayn devices and missing fan control on certain hardware, with patches already in development.