Valve’s $400 Steam Deck gaming handheld runs Linux, but it can play Windows games too. Many of them, anyhow! Some of the biggest games on Steam use anti-cheat software that doesn’t play nice with the Proton compatibility layer which lets Windows games work. That’s changing this year, with both Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and BattlEye confirming to The Verge that support is on the way, and Epic says it takes “just a few clicks.”
But will game developers patch their games to take advantage? Not necessarily! We reached out to every developer of every top EAC and BattlEye game on Steam. While four of them gave us a definite yes, the rest were less committed.
Here’s what they all had to say.
7 Days to Die — No comment
“We have no comment on it at this time. Our game is still in development. As we are still in Alpha, we are not ready to give a definitive yes or no at this time,” a spokesperson for developer The Fun Pimps tells The Verge.
Apex Legends — No answer yet
“We’re checking with the Respawn team on this and will get back to you as soon as we have an update,” a rep told The Verge on September 28th.
Ark: Survival Evolved — Yes
“Yes, we plan to update ARK settings to enable Battleye’s anti-cheat tweak for Steam Deck,” a Studio Wildcard rep tells The Verge.
Black Desert — No answer yet
“I’m checking with our devs right now and will get back to you with an answer asap,” a Pearl Abyss rep told The Verge on October 3rd.
DayZ — Maybe
“At this stage it’s a ‘maybe’ for us – we are still evaluating Proton as a whole and cannot yet commit to anything,” a Bohemia Interactive rep tells The Verge.
Dead by Daylight — Yes
“I can confirm that we have plans of updating our EAC to support the Steamdeck in the future,” a Behaviour Interactive rep tells The Verge.
Destiny 2 — No answer yet
“We’ve been trying to run this down. We don’t have anything to share right now, today, but we’ll keep at it,” a Bungie rep told The Verge on October 3rd.
Fall Guys — No comment
Even though it’s owned by Epic Games, the company saying EAC support should take “just a few clicks,” Mediatonic would not commit to an update for Fall Guys.
“Thanks for reaching out but at this time we won’t be making a comment,” a Mediatonic rep tells The Verge.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection — No comment
“I won’t have anything to share here, I’m afraid,” a rep for Microsoft tells The Verge.
Hunt: Showdown — No reply whatsoever
Crytek didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
Paladins and Smite — Maybe, but not this year
“We don’t currently have a timeline available but hope to provide such support in the near future,” a Hi-Rez Studios rep tells The Verge, adding:
While we have been actively doing some research on the topic, it is unlikely this support would happen by the Steamdeck launch in December. Even though our games do share some similarities, each one of them requires its own implementation that is significantly more delicate than changing some settings in the SDK. Hi-Rez is proud to have its games available on multiple platforms and consoles, so we hope to be able to provide such support in the near future.
PUBG — No comment
“The team does not have a comment for this,” a rep for Krafton tells The Verge.
Rainbow Six: Siege — No comment
“We don’t have anything to share at this time,” a Ubisoft rep tells The Verge.
Rust — Yes
“Yeah we’re working on it. Hoping to be done by the time the Deck comes out, if not it’ll be really soon after,” Facepunch Studios founder Garry Newman tells The Verge.
War Thunder — Yes
“Yes, we’re planning to do everything we can to make sure that War Thunder works on Steam Deck,” Gaijin Entertainment co-founder Anton Yudinsev tells The Verge.
We’ll update this story as more top games offer a yes or no on support for anti-cheat on Linux/Proton generally, and the Steam Deck specifically.
