EA removes Apex Legends from Steam Deck due to Linux cheating

EA

Electronic Arts announced Thursday that it’ll beryllium removing Steam Deck and Linux players’ entree to its conflict royale Apex Legends in an effort to combat cheating, effective immediately.

In a post connected the Apex Legends forums (spotted by The Verge) an EA spokesperson said it made this determination arsenic portion of its anti-cheat efforts. Basically, EA recovered that galore of nan exploits and cheats it’s trying to combat came done Linux distros. So it decided to artifact entree for Linux users. And since Steam Deck runs connected Linux by default (SteamOS is built from Debian and uses a furniture called Proton to make Windows and Mac games compatible), that meant Steam Deck had to go.

“We had to measurement nan determination connected nan number of players who were legitimately playing connected Linux/the Steam Deck versus nan greater wellness of nan organization of players for Apex. While nan organization of Linux users is small, their effect infected a adjacent magnitude of players’ games. This yet brought america to our determination today,” nan station read.

Granted, if you load up your Steam Deck pinch Windows, you could play Apex Legends. It conscionable won’t activity done nan default launcher. You tin besides still play it done Steam connected PC.

EA antecedently reported successful August that it’s banned complete 6 cardinal accounts since launch, pinch complete 100,000 banned connected mean each month. Currently, it uses Easy Anti-Cheat to show cheating successful nan game, on pinch its different titles.

This isn’t nan first clip a AAA title has been removed from nan Steam Deck owed to anti-cheat measures. Last month, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online were besides removed from Steam Deck aft integrating BattlEye Anti-Cheat, though Rockstar didn’t explain what astir it was incompatible.