The developers of Apex Legends have announced that they're going to be blocking the game completely on Linux platforms including Steam Deck.
Writing in a post on X / Twitter I'll copy it below:
Hey Legends,
We’re sharing today that Linux (and Steam Deck using Linux) will no longer be able to access Apex Legends.
Our dev team wanted to provide a bit more context into this and share some of the decision-making process that happened along the way. As mentioned in our prior anti-cheat dev blog, competitive integrity is a top priority for our team and there are many ways in which we’re battling cheaters—this is one to add to the list. We remain committed to more regular updates on topics like this and appreciate your continued reports.
Read on to hear from our Anti-Cheat Team.
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What’s happening?
In our efforts to combat cheating in Apex, we've identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats. As a result, we've decided to block Linux OS access to the game. While this will impact a small number of Apex players, we believe the decision will meaningfully reduce instances of cheating in our game.
Linux is used by default on the Steam Deck. There is currently no reliable way for us to differentiate a legitimate Steam Deck from a malicious cheat claiming to be a Steam Deck (via Linux).
Decision making process
The openness of the Linux operating systems makes it an attractive one for cheaters and cheat developers. Linux cheats are indeed harder to detect and the data shows that they are growing at a rate that requires an outsized level of focus and attention from the team for a relatively small platform. There are also cases in which cheats for the Windows OS get emulated as if it’s on Linux in order to increase the difficulty of detection and prevention.
We had to weigh the decision on the number of players who were legitimately playing on Linux/the Steam Deck versus the greater health of the population of players for Apex. While the population of Linux users is small, their impact infected a fair amount of players’ games. This ultimately brought us to our decision today.
Next steps
To eliminate this cheat vector, we have made the decision to prevent access to the game for Linux users. This means that Apex Legends will be unplayable immediately for those running this operating system. Playing on handhelds, such as the Steam Deck, is still possible if the user opts to install Windows.
To clarify, this will not impact users who play Apex via Steam on Windows (or other supported platforms).
Thanks for everyone’s continual support and we look forward to sharing future anti-cheat updates!
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This is only a part of our ongoing efforts towards Apex’s anti-cheat. We are continually expanding and refining our detection and banning capabilities globally. Keep an eye out for more news to come in the future. Please continue to report cheaters using the designated tools and channels. Your reports are helpful and matter to us and anti-cheat continues to be a top priority for us.
For future updates and the latest info, continue to follow us here or check out the Apex Tracker Trello for bugs or concerns we’re investigating.
Valve are really going to need to do something more about the anti-cheat situation on Linux. We only recently had GTA Online in GTA V blocked (single-player still works). EA also broke the likes of Battlefield 1 and various other multiplayer games as well on Linux / Steam Deck, and I did say it was likely only a matter of time until EA messed with Apex. The list of blocked titles just keeps going like Roblox too — it's just a repeating problem that seems to have no end in sight.
Soon then the official Steam Deck rating from Valve will drop from Playable to Unsupported. Update 18:16 UTC - Valve have now marked it as Unsupported on Steam Deck.
When you try to play on a Linux platform now, you're just given an anti-cheat message. So this is the end of Apex Legends on Linux and Steam Deck.
How much of a loss is it? Well, for Apex fans on Linux platforms it will of course be a big one. However, looking at Valve's own stats, Apex isn't actually in the Top 100 for the last month of most played games on Steam Deck. The past year though? It's number #48 overall.
Oh, and before you suddenly go "but…but Microsoft are banning kernel-level anti-cheat!" — no they're not. Various YouTube videos and other media made headlines about it, but they're wrong which I wrote about before. Even if in some far-away future Microsoft managed to do so, companies will still block Linux directly if they wanted to (and they already do like Roblox!).
In related news, Valve only announced yesterday that Steam store pages will need to properly note what kernel-level anti-cheat they use.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Talon1024If we're lucky, Linux users will still be able to play these games via cloud gaming services like GeForce NOW, even if using such services requires a sizable sacrifice in terms of control and privacy.Eh, not that much of a privacy sacrifice compared to having a rootkit on your computer.
rustigsmed 
Nov 1
BladePupper Nov 1
This is just an admission that they know the anti-cheat they currently have is clearly not good enough, instead of going to a doctor they would rather put a small paw patrol bandaid on a gunshot wound to their foot. Instead of cutting off part of your audience you could invest more into the anti-cheat that you have especially since you could try to roll it out to your games.
I think Deadlock is the testing ground for something like this.
Last edited by enigmaxg2 on 1 November 2024 at 4:48 am UTC
But game developers still pushing for ring-0 malware is outrageous, just fucking release your cash machine on consoles only and just get the fuck off the market if you can't make your multiplayer only game reliable, ffs
Quoting: a0kamiI love Respawn Entertainment for everything they've made.
But game developers still pushing for ring-0 malware is outrageous, just fucking release your cash machine on consoles only and just get the fuck off the market if you can't make your multiplayer only game reliable, ffs
Sadly, EA is doing that even with single player games or their single player portions, why would you ever need anticheats in the campaign of Battlefield V? or that rally game??
This is not about cheaters as the examples given show. This is part of a very obscure playbook.
And before someone comes up with DA Veilguard...they also renounced to Denuvo. EA suddenly became good guys?? no, just that the expectations for the game were low thanks to the political fuzz and they wanted to bring as much people as possible.
Sadly I have lots of EA games in my library, maybe I should prepare for the fact that all of those will be unplayable in the near future.
Last edited by enigmaxg2 on 1 November 2024 at 5:12 am UTC
ElectricPrism Nov 1
Quotewe've decided to block Linux OS access to the game
Quotethis will impact a small number of Apex players
Adding Insult to Injury.
I'm still not convinced that behind closed doors there are not nefarious forces cock-blocking Linux. Adobe. EA. Epic (Rocket League) and others -- there is ZERO logic behind their actions.
Hostilities against things they dont like and blame shifting their shitty programming as if computing were a politics.
But hey, just like businesses mixing with politics has lead to companies go out of business -- lets make it happen.
Lets do our part to help EA go out of business unless they walk this back.
I'm doing my part.
Make Your Dreams Come True.
Quoting: PyrateAs long as these devs don't post some statistics to support their "findings" I'll keep calling bullshit on this "Linux makes cheating easy".
I refuse to believe the amount of cheaters who would go out of their way and install a whole different OS just to cheat to be of any signifiacnce. Cheaters are lazy bitches, most of them would probably get filtered just by the aspect of dualbooting alone.
nope, many cheat solutions are way harder to install than an operating system.
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