Anti-cheat work on Warhammer: Vermintide 2 for Steam Deck & Linux 'on hold'

Well, it honestly wouldn't make much sense for them to focus on this.
I don't see much of a continued life for Vermintide I or II once Darktide is out. At least for quite a while.

I still hope that they can get it done for Darktide, but I won't be holding my breath.
Hard to say what the issue is, but Fatshark have proven time and time again that their coders might not be the very best.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 30 June 2022 at 12:36 pm UTC

As someone who works in software that message is that they don’t have enough experienced developers to do the debugging and figure out what is probably a few simple changes. Management is also probably grinding the employees as well. No problem! I will just not buy your game. That’s not me being facetious, they literally don’t want anyone to play it on Linux. The Steam Deck wasn’t a big change for Linux compatibility. These companies just chose to ignore it this long until their developers who could figure it out moved on to better things (great resignation).

Hopefully devs and their managers can see how dumb the marketshare argument was that led them here.

Does this game have EAC files at multiple locations like Fall Guys?

I feel obliged to go off-topic and say that it might not be the coders, it might be management pushing for continual rabbits out of hats instead. I've seen that so very much that it's actually the more likely scenario. The coders themselves have probably performed miracles to get anything running at all under such conditions.

Usually, I'd agree.
But with Fatshark you really have to look at the history.
They have been taking forever to make even simple changes (you know, reminds me of CA a little) in their previous games.

There's also the fact that lots of other devs have exactly the same thing working just fine now.
Only Fatshark and their custom engine can't do it right ... ???

Of course, it is entirely possible that they don't have the manpower in the software-side that they'd need and they are just crunching the few coders they do have.
And those then don't have the time to look into Linux properly - we've all done it, it takes a week or two to get acclimated development-wise if you come from the crutch-driven world of Windows.

In the end, though, even bad coders are a management fault for not detecting that, so you're definitely right in that sense, no matter the actual issue at hand here.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 30 June 2022 at 3:29 pm UTC

Does this game have EAC files at multiple locations like Fall Guys?

With Fallguys I only had to copy the so file to another location and modify an ini file so it points to another executable and let both the Epic Games Store and its networking update.

Multi-played without problems.

I feel obliged to go off-topic and say that it might not be the coders, it might be management pushing for continual rabbits out of hats instead. I've seen that so very much that it's actually the more likely scenario. The coders themselves have probably performed miracles to get anything running at all under such conditions.

Usually, I'd agree.
But with Fatshark you really have to look at the history.
They have been taking forever to make even simple changes (you know, reminds me of CA a little) in their previous games.

There's also the fact that lots of other devs have exactly the same thing working just fine now.
Only Fatshark and their custom engine can't do it right ... ???

Of course, it is entirely possible that they don't have the manpower in the software-side that they'd need and they are just crunching the few coders they do have.
And those then don't have the time to look into Linux properly - we've all done it, it takes a week or two to get acclimated development-wise if you come from the crutch-driven world of Windows.

In the end, though, even bad coders are a management fault for not detecting that, so you're definitely right in that sense, no matter the actual issue at hand here.

Well, all I can say is that from what I've seen (and personally experienced) really don't be so quick to judge the coders.
Also "a week or two" is really....intense, if someone is moving from Windows to GNU/Linux. Obviously depends on a lot of factors, but even counting coder reprioritisation in weeks can be something a manager will baulk at. Better ROI spending the time to improve something else. Which is exactly what's happening here.

It's been nearly 9 months. They started looking at this in October 2021.

With Fallguys I only had to copy the so file to another location and modify an ini file so it points to another executable and let both the Epic Games Store and its networking update.

Yes, I just wonder if something similar to this needs to be done for warhammer vermintide 2. I can't verify myself since I don't own the game and SteamDB is refusing to list files for me.
At least I know from SteamDB there are 2 precious .so files in "binaries" depot.

Never understood why they implemented it in a co-op game... Was hoping to see it come to Linux soon to get some fresh co-op with the lads.

Never understood why they implemented it in a co-op game... Was hoping to see it come to Linux soon to get some fresh co-op with the lads.

One guess, and IMO the one that makes most sense:
They somehow implemented the cosmetics and character level stuff in the client instead of the servers.
Which is what they do to keep people playing -> earns them money.
Of course, all of that should be happening on their servers, not the client. But who knows.
Again, if true, hinting at a not-stellarly-competent software team (or a very small one crunched too hard by management)...

Because if this was really only about not cheating in the sense of wall-hack, hp, whatever during a mission - who cares? It's co-op! You can kick/ban people!
If it's really about this, yeah, I don't get it, either.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 1 July 2022 at 7:55 am UTC

I feel obliged to go off-topic and say that it might not be the coders, it might be management pushing for continual rabbits out of hats instead. I've seen that so very much that it's actually the more likely scenario. The coders themselves have probably performed miracles to get anything running at all under such conditions.

Usually, I'd agree.
But with Fatshark you really have to look at the history.
They have been taking forever to make even simple changes (you know, reminds me of CA a little) in their previous games.

There's also the fact that lots of other devs have exactly the same thing working just fine now.
Only Fatshark and their custom engine can't do it right ... ???

Of course, it is entirely possible that they don't have the manpower in the software-side that they'd need and they are just crunching the few coders they do have.
And those then don't have the time to look into Linux properly - we've all done it, it takes a week or two to get acclimated development-wise if you come from the crutch-driven world of Windows.

In the end, though, even bad coders are a management fault for not detecting that, so you're definitely right in that sense, no matter the actual issue at hand here.

Well, all I can say is that from what I've seen (and personally experienced) really don't be so quick to judge the coders.
Also "a week or two" is really....intense, if someone is moving from Windows to GNU/Linux. Obviously depends on a lot of factors, but even counting coder reprioritisation in weeks can be something a manager will baulk at. Better ROI spending the time to improve something else. Which is exactly what's happening here.

It's been nearly 9 months. They started looking at this in October 2021.

And I doubt they continually looked at it all that time. There's nothing to suggest they only just handed it over to Epic and Valve to sort out now - it would've been done some time ago. Yet nobody seems to be suggesting Epic and Valve have bad coders because they haven't sorted it out yet either.

I'm not suggesting they're bad coders. I just don't think they care. They'd have known about, raised and fixed the issue within days or weeks if they did. It's been 9 months while many, many other games have easily and simply enabled EAC or BattlEye.

I feel obliged to go off-topic and say that it might not be the coders, it might be management pushing for continual rabbits out of hats instead. I've seen that so very much that it's actually the more likely scenario. The coders themselves have probably performed miracles to get anything running at all under such conditions.

Usually, I'd agree.
But with Fatshark you really have to look at the history.
They have been taking forever to make even simple changes (you know, reminds me of CA a little) in their previous games.

There's also the fact that lots of other devs have exactly the same thing working just fine now.
Only Fatshark and their custom engine can't do it right ... ???

Of course, it is entirely possible that they don't have the manpower in the software-side that they'd need and they are just crunching the few coders they do have.
And those then don't have the time to look into Linux properly - we've all done it, it takes a week or two to get acclimated development-wise if you come from the crutch-driven world of Windows.

In the end, though, even bad coders are a management fault for not detecting that, so you're definitely right in that sense, no matter the actual issue at hand here.

Well, all I can say is that from what I've seen (and personally experienced) really don't be so quick to judge the coders.
Also "a week or two" is really....intense, if someone is moving from Windows to GNU/Linux. Obviously depends on a lot of factors, but even counting coder reprioritisation in weeks can be something a manager will baulk at. Better ROI spending the time to improve something else. Which is exactly what's happening here.

It's been nearly 9 months. They started looking at this in October 2021.

And I doubt they continually looked at it all that time. There's nothing to suggest they only just handed it over to Epic and Valve to sort out now - it would've been done some time ago. Yet nobody seems to be suggesting Epic and Valve have bad coders because they haven't sorted it out yet either.

I'm not suggesting they're bad coders. I just don't think they care. They'd have known about, raised and fixed the issue within days or weeks if they did. It's been 9 months while many, many other games have easily and simply enabled EAC or BattlEye.

I'm still unwilling to say that it's as easy for them as for others. They have, by their account, done everything that was supposed to make it easy and...it didn't work. Considering they're in the middle of Darktide, works fine under Windows (their actual target environment), I doubt the audience would be that large even with the Deck, and they could've spent ages getting nowhere, I think they absolutely made the right call here.

Sounds like you agree - they don't care. They have other priorities. Because if you genuinely think that if they did care, but still couldn't get this working in 9 months, then we'll agree to differ. If there was money on the table here, they'd have it working.

But I won't be buying Darktide now because I don't trust them to care about Steam Deck or Linux. That's their call. It's my money.

Does this game have EAC files at multiple locations like Fall Guys?

Yes, it does. Can someone try copying the .so file from binaries/ to installers/EasyAntiCheat and launcher/EasyAntiCheat ?


Last edited by mr-victory on 1 July 2022 at 12:52 pm UTC

Depends on your definition of care. They might care, but can't justify, which is a wildly different scenario than simply not caring.

I think one could have serious and interesting philosophical discussions about whether those two things are actually wildly different.

Depends on your definition of care. They might care, but can't justify, which is a wildly different scenario than simply not caring.

I think one could have serious and interesting philosophical discussions about whether those two things are actually wildly different.

I think of it like the Trolley Dilemma. It's a matter of finite resources, where best to spend them, and what lives or dies as a result. Either way, much like the Linux based GoG client, it doesn't matter in the end. They're not doing it so that essentially takes it off the table for exclusively Linux gamers.

Depends on your definition of care. They might care, but can't justify, which is a wildly different scenario than simply not caring.

I think one could have serious and interesting philosophical discussions about whether those two things are actually wildly different.

I think of it like the Trolley Dilemma.

About which one can also have serious and interesting philosophical discussions.