It's here. EA Anti-Cheat has now been rolled out into Battlefield 1, breaking another multiplayer game on Steam Deck and Desktop Linux.
We've known it was coming for a little while as I reported back in August, EA were planning this roll-out originally for September, but it seems it was later delayed until a day ago where it's only just now become live. Battlefield 1 joins the likes of Battlefield 2042, Battlefield V, EA SPORTS WRC and Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 that added EA Anti-Cheat after release and all now broken on Linux platforms.
They aren't the only games completely unplayable for Steam Deck / Linux as this EA Anti-Cheat is also in EA SPORTS FC 25, EA SPORTS Madden NFL 25, F1 24 and EA will continue using it for future multiplayer games so we can expect them all to be unplayable at release.
How long until they roll this out into Apex Legends to replace Easy Anti-Cheat? It must be only a matter of time now.
Anti-Cheat continues to be the biggest issue for gaming on Steam Deck / Linux, like how Grand Theft Auto V is also now broken due to adding in BattlEye with Rockstar refusing to enable it for Proton.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: dibzQuoting: LoudTechieThe question is why does everybody use BattleEye, to actively break linux.
I mean all the other anti-cheats offer just as much support for breaking it.
This way the Wine people only have to implement the behavior BattleEye(Windows only edition) depends on.
Not that I'm complaining, but it sounds stupid.
I would assume it's the same reason things like google drive, and similar cloud storage, avoid making official linux clients. The general idea is that linux users are more savvy, and therefor, more likely to use the services to their maximum extent, and for storage using all of what you pay for is considered a bad thing.
In anti-cheat context, I can only assume they're specifically targeting "savvy".
Obviously all of that happens anyway, probably nearly immediately.
Ofcourse they're breaking it because they fear tech savvy users, but why put all your eggs in one basket.
Easy Anti Cheat can break it on Linux too and it's just as hard.
Most anti-cheat providers can break on Linux if that is a feature you want, why use only Battle Eye for it.
Quoting: missingnoThis is why I don't see Proton as a substitute for proper support. Because if they don't actually support the platform, they could break it at any time and say you're outta luck.
Ah, but this is support.
They actively develop for Linux(to break it).
"Not supported" means that you're not going to put effort in functionality for the platform, breaking is functionality, from the perspective of Epic Games it's even desired functionality.
Native games also drop support all the time, so support doesn't mean that much.
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