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Even though Apex Legends was marked officially Steam Deck Verified by Valve on March 9, that we covered in an article, it's now been updated and it's broken on Steam Deck and Linux desktops.
It's still not really clear what's going on. No announcement was made previously from any party. Valve didn't say anything, Respawn (the developer) didn't and EA (the publisher) also stayed silent. It just seemed to go through Deck Verified, and showed the whole world it worked as it was properly live on the Steam store and in your Steam Library on Deck. Now, a patch came in and it has removed the Linux Easy Anti-Cheat file so the game will boot you out telling you it's not working.
This is pretty frustrating. We've talked a couple of times now across articles and videos on issues with Deck Verified, and this certainly doesn't help. There's always going to be teething issues with a new platform of course but this isn't even a Top 100 title, Apex is constantly in the Top 10 on Steam. To have it break like this even though it's Deck Verified? What the heck is going on?
It does bring up other questions now too like: how long is the lag between a major game getting an upgrade, and it going through Deck Verified again to check it works? What about smaller games, do they have to wait longer? The list of questions goes on.
Such a shame, as it became an instant favourite of mine and worked so nicely on Deck:
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RichardYao Mar 14, 2022
Quoting: rustybroomhandleQuoting: RichardYaoQuoting: quotI wonder if dropping in that missing `easyanticheat_x64.so` file would fix the issue. The removal seems accidental, so I'm assuming the main binary is still compatible. Of course, you're risking a ban if you try that, but I am curious.
It does fix the issue.
How did you get the correct file?
I had a Windows To Go USB key that I used for comparing Apex Legends performance between Windows and Linux. The result was that the two are basically equal on my hardware (see my profile for details). I was able to grab the file from there, although various people on reddit and discord are distributing the file at the moment. That is technically copyright infringement, although linking to someone else's distribution of an infringing file is not, so here is a link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/te2i42/comment/i0n4y0p/?context=3
The sha256 checksum is d971d8d9b4f68021ef3330d500f1c9a2b7e91e484a0d26c0233ad63fe8ac2388.
Honestly, I am not a lawyer, but my opinion as a software developer is that it would be pointless for Respawn/EAC/Epic to pursue legal cases against the people sharing this because they can make the file worthless by making a server configuration change. Also, until they make the configuration change, I imagine sharing it could be called fair use.
It also is reportedly possible to download the old depot version from steam according to others (although my attempt did not work) and anyone with a steam account can do that, so this file is something of an open secret. It would be best if someone made instructions for grabbing the file from steam's CDN and distributed those instructions instead of distributing the file so that people download it from Valve, which can legally distribute these files.
Last edited by RichardYao on 14 March 2022 at 8:59 pm UTC
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RichardYao Mar 14, 2022
Quoting: t3gQuoting: pete910And this is why I don't like this relyance we are heading for on wine/proton !
Native FTW !
The era of native Linux games is kinda dead. Most Linux native games I play are abandoned by the developer, have issues running due to some libc error, or have issues with game controllers. When's the last time Feral released a AAA game that wasn't some silly RTS?
If I run it in Proton, I don't have to deal with that and Proton performance is generally better.
If you get old versions of the system libraries and put them in LD_LIBRARY_PATH, they are likely to work. However, that is not an out of the box experience.
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Such things also happen regularly under Windows. It's just that all hell immediately boils over. It takes a little longer to hear the desperate cries of the penguins. Still. 
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Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: pete910And this is why I don't like this relyance we are heading for on wine/proton !Native games aren't invulnerable to breaking, I've written my fair share of articles on exactly that.
Native FTW !
Extremely less prone though unlike windows games played through Proton
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RichardYao Mar 14, 2022
Quoting: 1xokSuch things also happen regularly under Windows. It's just that all hell immediately boils over. It takes a little longer to hear the desperate cries of the penguins. Still.
Windows users are reportedly having problems too:
https://twitter.com/alphaINTEL/status/1503445931609493511?s=20&t=GRed1AuXvpIbdn1n4QpJMQ
That issue is a separate issue from our issue, although the report suggests that multiple things were botched today.
Last edited by RichardYao on 14 March 2022 at 9:31 pm UTC
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Quoting: KelvinhboQuoting: pete910And this is why I don't like this relyance we are heading for on wine/proton !
Native FTW !
About 90% of Linux native games are an abandoned buggy mess that work far better if you force them to play through Proton.
Luckily not had that issue, I have had not updated to coincide with the windows version.
Thats down to the steam machines falling on it's arse so most companies gave up on Linux. I was hoping that may change with the deck but it will depend on how well it sells ect.
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Quoting: GuestQuoting: pete910And this is why I don't like this relyance we are heading for on wine/proton !
Native FTW !
It's not a WINE/Proton problem, it's a Valve problem.
Was it valve that has patched Apex ?
Am guessing not, so how is it valves fault/problem ? It's a problem now as it's allegedly deck verified.
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I'm getting strong intern vibes here 
he probably was like "yo why is this file twice in this directory let's optimize this" Always fucking dave man
he probably was like "yo why is this file twice in this directory let's optimize this" Always fucking dave man
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Quoting: XpanderQuoting: rustybroomhandleQuoting: RichardYaoQuoting: quotI wonder if dropping in that missing `easyanticheat_x64.so` file would fix the issue. The removal seems accidental, so I'm assuming the main binary is still compatible. Of course, you're risking a ban if you try that, but I am curious.
It does fix the issue.
How did you get the correct file?
i backed up the file before the game updated :)
could you maybe share this file somehow?
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Quoting: RichardYaoLiam, as I said previously, being Steam Deck verified is not an official announcement of support because the developer has no control over whether Valve does it. The only thing close to an official announcement that we received was the developer merging its steam deck compatibility branch into master, which is not a promise of long term support.I disagree. If Deck Verified is not confirmation that it's supported (by either Valve or the developer), then it quite frankly makes it pointless. This is one of the only things the Deck has, and I will continue to report on it.
Please stop treating Steam Deck verified status as some kind of official announcement going forward. Steam Deck verified status just means that the game passed Valve's compatibility checklist. Consequently, the steam deck verified status is likely to be revoked unless the developer fixes this ASAP.
That being said, if you restore a backup of the `easyanticheat_x64.so` file (default location: `~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Apex Legends/easyanticheat_x64.so`) after the update, the game will continue to work. Since a number of people at Valve play Apex Legends, I imagine that they will be contacting the developer about this, so it is possible that another update will restore out of box support soon, assuming that they do not disable the server support. As long as the server support for Proton remains in place, it is possible that this was a mistake. If server support breaks, then we know that this is intentional.
Valve advertise Verified / Playable status on their store for everyone to see, and on their Steam Deck Library pages and in the Steam Deck Storefront itself has a dedicated section just for these titles that shows by default.
If it's not official, then Valve 100% should not show it. It's as simple as that, otherwise it's thoroughly misleading and I will continue to report on it the good and bad because it's important and this whole situations only highlights further as to why.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 14 March 2022 at 9:56 pm UTC
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