Fortnite won’t get Steam Deck support, Epic CEO blames cheaters
Epic Games might have committed to making their Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) system more compatible with the Steam Deck, but don’t expect to see their biggest game on the Valve handheld. Battle royale money machine Fortnite will not be updated to work on the Steam Deck – and according to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, that’s down to a lack of “confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating” on Linux platforms.
Sweeney was responding to Twitter user Stormy178, who asked if there are any plans to make Fortnite play nicely with the Proton compatibility layer (a software interface that, in the Deck’s case, allows for Windows games to run on the Linux-based SteamOS). “Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti-Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck”, he replied. And it’s hard to get more final than “Fortnite no”.
Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
Sweeney later elaborated why, writing that “We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations, including custom ones.”
As it’s fundamentally just a shrunken PC, the Steam Deck will be able to run Windows and all manner of Linux distros, not just SteamOS. And since Linux supports custom kernel configs, the concern seems to be that Fortnite could be overrun by Steam Deck-wielding cheaters who’ve taken advantage of a more tweakable OS to get around anti-cheat measures.
It's a bit odd that Epic are happy to encourage EAC uptake on the Steam Deck, but evidently aren’t convinced of its effectiveness at protecting one of their own games. But then, Fortnite might be a special case on account of its obscene popularity: it might just attract
Read more on rockpapershotgun.com
