Even though Epic Games announced recently how they expanded support for Easy Anti-Cheat to have full support of native Linux, plus Wine / Proton (and so the Steam Deck), it seems it's not as easy as we hoped.
In the original announcement, Epic mentioned how it can be enabled with "a few clicks in the Epic Online Services Developer Portal" but the situation is never that simple. A developer of Warhammer: Vermintide 2 has written a post on Steam to explain, noting that there are two versions of EAC. There's the original and the newer version used via Epic Online Services. The majority of games are likely still with the old version, since the newer one needs SDK upgrades and newer integrations.
We already knew that developers needed the latest SDK from the original announcement, but this makes it simpler for us all to understand.
Here's what they said:
One part we already know not to be true, is a requirement of Epic Online Services authentication, as the developers of Brawlhalla showed in their own testing with the new integration which worked without users touching Epic's services directly. The other point remains though, as developers won't upgrade from the older implementation to the newer without a good reason, due to extra work involved when the older one is still getting the latest EAC updates as normal (as confirmed in a later post). Although, there may come a time Epic force EOS for it, but it stands to reason they haven't currently as it would have been a big upheaval for so many developers using it and likely caused plenty of developer backlash there.
Tripwire Interactive also hinted towards the exact same thing, when asked about hooking up support for
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, a developer noted back in September 2021, "The version of EAC used on RS 2 is not the version that is advertised in this, and it is not something that will work for RS 2 players.".
Hopefully the actual work involved in moving from old EAC to new isn't too much, but it's a reason why we've yet to see any really look to do it. Once the Steam Deck is out though, it should improve, if enough players ask developers to get it sorted, otherwise players may have to resort to a manual install of Windows on the Steam Deck instead of SteamOS 3 to play some of the most popular multiplayer titles.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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What I take out of this is simple: Games released in a year or two will have much better Linux support in EAC.
I work for a company with many software developers and I see all the time how many components get upgraded when they already work right now -- close to never. It only happens when there is a security risk. The business pressure directs devs to add features and fix bugs. Changing EAC SDK would be seen as a risk and could cause a bad experience for the 97% of players that don't need the Linux-compatible version.
Quoting: GuestPeople need to stop making this out to be some conspiracy by Epic, when it isn't.
Excuse me, what?
Quoting: GuestI'm not sure if I understand this correctly. So supposedly just updating the EAC version , will automagically enable proton support? or even with the up-to-date version you still have to enable proton support manually?
I'm sure it's also not in their mind how bad the linux community is sometimes against registering in to play a game true third party solution.
Their maps are all just one huge static model, that's why the game takes 100GB where a higher qualified studio takes 30GB with dynamic loading, their netcode is basic to say the least...
It's nice to have some insight, but Fatshark is not a good example for even an average studio.
Quoting: DaddySteamA login might not be required yet, BUT it can be required in the future.
Epic is no saint and definitively wants to profit from it.
so you think they refuse to migrate to the new SDK because they are afraid that epic will relase an mandatory update for it to require an epic account? its more likely that they will refuse such mandatory update.
Quoting: GuestThey admitted to Fatshark it could be clearer but that's the only thing Epic are guilty of here.
I can see the argument that Epic's news release could be clearer, but I don't think we (royally, ie gamers) are the target audience. It seems the news release was for developers, possibly even just those already familiar with the ecosystem, hence the links to the SDK and changelog.
Quoting: 14Changing EAC SDK would be seen as a risk and could cause a bad experience for the 97% of players that don't need the Linux-compatible version
That totally makes sense. Especially if the SDK's are divergent enough to have separately maintained versions, seems like they aren't very interchangable
Quoting: 14What I take out of this is simple: Games released in a year or two will have much better Linux support in EAC.
I agree. The release announcement also mentioned native support for EAC for Linux too, which I think is pretty cool.
Quoting: 14Thanks for the great info in the article.
What I take out of this is simple: Games released in a year or two will have much better Linux support in EAC.
I work for a company with many software developers and I see all the time how many components get upgraded when they already work right now -- close to never. It only happens when there is a security risk. The business pressure directs devs to add features and fix bugs. Changing EAC SDK would be seen as a risk and could cause a bad experience for the 97% of players that don't need the Linux-compatible version.
so lets place a bug bounty, if someone find an security hole, then the latest version of the SDK will patch it, and developers might migrate to it...
Unless another multiplatform AC releases.
Even this is not guaranteed, since players can just install Windows. I assume most Deck players would be tech savvy enough to do this - The product won't be sold outside of Steam itself
Quoting: basedUnless another multiplatform AC releases.
Both EAC and BE are multiplatform. That's not the problem. The problem is that Wine is an intermediate layer "messing" with the system calls of the game and therefore similar to cheating solutions. If you subscribe to the idea that you can do an effective anti-cheat by knowing everything that's going on with the system (which I don't), then this is problem.
Quoting: mr-victoryWhich type of EAC does Fortnite use?
For games in active development it matters less. For games with indefinite life like Fortnite it doesn't matter at all. You find the resources to integrate with new libraries and APIs to ensure of the success of the project for its whole lifetime.
For old games in mantenance mode it's a different story. Updating a library it's not a given but can be done if it's a reasonable effort (the fabled "few clicks"). Refactor the game to use a different one (especially when the software works as is) it's a desperate case to make to management. In any industry not just gaming.
EOS anti cheat supporting proton opens the door for new games to be playable on deck. (and that's very good and not a given, don't forget that)
EAC not supporting proton shuts the door for old games to be playable on deck.
That's the simple, transparent message that should have been given to gamers, even if it makes less PR.
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So the "just a few clicks" statement made in the original announcement wasn't entirely accurate, and would only apply to titles using the EOS version of EAC, which simply hasn't been many games aside from either pretty new ones, and likely predominantly Epic exclusive titles.
We are still looking at what is or isn't going to be possible, but it's not as easy as it was made out to be -- far from it in fact.
There may be other solutions or workarounds, but ripping out the old EAC and rewriting everything to implement "NuEAC" and potentially asking our entire playerbase to connect through and sign through EOS for an honestly tiny market share that was (and would remain) unsupported from the get go might be a deal breaker.
Time will tell.