The Steam Deck is something of a talisman for gaming on Linux, its popularity and penguin-powered SteamOS having almost singlehandedly dragged it past MacOS as the second-most-used operating system among Steam users. Sadly, this also means the Valve handheld is the primary casualty when developers decide to stop bothering with Linux support, as Respawn Entertainment have decided to do for Apex Legends.
]]>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.
]]>Over the last few days, many New World players have been struggling to get into Amazon's popular MMORPG. Some reported being booted to menu after queuing, while others haven't been able to open the game at all. Last night, the devs suggested it was a problem with Easy Anti-Cheat, and offered a workaround so folks could get back on the grind. As it turns out, other games that use EAC have seen similar issues, and now Steam has rolled back a client update to try and fix them.
]]>The Steam Deck has just broken through a major compatibility barrier: one that would have made it difficult for some of Steam’s most-played multiplayer games to properly function on the Valve handheld. Gabe and co. have Epic to thank for this one, though, as the latter’s Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) tech is now extending support to Linux and it Wine and Proton compatibility layers. The same layers, you may recall, that the Steam Deck relies on to run games without native Linux ports. In other words, games with multiplayer components that wouldn’t have worked on the Steam Deck - because their use of EAC precluded Linux/Wine/Proton compatibility - should, in theory, be able to run in full.
]]>Epic Games' platform war with Valve is being fought on many fronts, not just via the Epic Games Store. The less noticed part of the fight is Epic Online Services, which provides backend tools for game developers similar to those Valve offer via Steamworks. Epic have now added two new parts to that service, making Easy Anti-Cheat and cross-platform voice comms tech free for all developers to use.
]]>Respawn Entertainment have vowed to improve the cheat-busting tech in Apex Legends, though it seems to be doing pretty well already considering they say they've banned over 355,000 accounts since launch five weeks ago. It's good to see Titanfall's free-to-play battle royale spin-off slam so many bans, as the low cost of entry on F2P games is like poo to a fly. In this powerful simile, cheaters are flies who eat poo. Also outside the metaphor they eat poo, irl. Respawn also plan to thwart ne'er-do-wells who join matches to spam ads during character selection then leave.
]]>Epic Games, the makers of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and bona fide cultural phenomenon Fortnite Battle Royale, have bought the company behind cheat-smashing software Easy Anti-Cheat. Epic already use Kamu's tools in Fortnite, and now they own the whole dang company. Kamu say they'll still work with other developers and game engines, not just Epic's stuff. And Epic say they'll use this opportunity to befriend more Finns.
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