The obstacle that prevented Steam Deck from running games like Fortnite or Apex, has been solved thanks to Epic Games' Easy Anti-Cheat, which extends to Linux.
Good news for Steam Deck: one of his biggest problems, incompatibility of several of the games Steam with its Linux-based operating system, it can be easily solved. And it will be, ironically, thanks to Epic Games, the main competitor of Valve's online store.
Remember when we talked about how the Steam Deck wouldn't be able to run many of Steam's most popular games unless something changed? This is the change. Or, at least, the beginning of the change, which will ultimately depend on the developers.
Epic Online Services just announced that their anti-cheat software, Easy Anti-Cheat, will expand its support to Linux. That includes Wine and Proton, the compatibility layers that SteamOS, the native Steam Deck operating system, is based on.
Easy Anti-Cheat is available free to all developers, and is a tool that allows you to protect your games from hackers and cheats. Many games use it, and since it is not compatible with Linux, it meant that those games would not be able to work on the Steam Deck.
The only way to solve it would be to install another operating system such as Windows on the machine, something possible but that goes against the philosophy of the machine: bring the simplicity of consoles to the world and the power of PC gaming).
As of now, the developers they will be able to activate the compatibility in Linux of their games that use the anti-cheat. It is not something automatic: games that use Easy Anti-Cheat will not happen overnight to work on Linux, since it has to be the developer who makes it possible.
The good news is that it will only take "a few clicks," according to the Epic Games statement. Therefore, game developers like Fortnite, Apex Legends, For Honor, PUBG, Paladins, Fall Guys o Dead by Daylight they will be able to make their games work on Linux (and therefore Steam Deck) very easily.
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All games listed on the Easy Anti-Cheat website, or those marked in red in ProtonDBThey will be able to work on Steam Deck, as long as their developers allow it, of course.
Steam Deck will begin to arrive at the end of the year or early 2022 to the first to pre-order them. Steam Deck devkits are already reaching developers, and their first impressions are positive.
Source: GamingOnLinux
