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.
EagleDelta 3 days ago
Quoting: TurkeysteaksServer side anticheat is unfortunately a dream (Poor Counter Strike), and cheats only keep getting more sophisticated. Is this problem solvable?
You hit the nail on the head. The problem is not solvable as long as players have access to the hardware.... and even then that likely won't stop it. This is the same problem we see in the InfoSec world. The more sophisticated counters there are to Cheats (and Malware), the more sophisticated workarounds will exist. It's not winnable and the more complex the Anti-Cheat gets, the more complex the Cheats will find be.... and this doesn't even include how OS vendors really want to start isolating applications from the system itself. Besides Docker/Flatpak/Snap on Linux - Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android all have ways to sandbox applications so they don't have direct access to the system.... it's just that none of these systems have, as of yet, been enforced on developers.
It's like Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft trying to stop physical hacks on their consoles. You simply cannot short of creating legal gates to even learning Electronic, Mechanical, Software, Systems, Network, etc Engineering skills.... Kind of like how some Law Enforcement want to hamstring Encryption or make it illegal without realizing that it's just Mathematics... you know that thing you learn in school?
Last edited by EagleDelta on 1 November 2024 at 5:49 pm UTC
I've said it a million times now, the ONLY anticheat that works is community moderation. Of course the purpose of these kernel level anti-cheats isn't to stop cheating, it's to spy on users and harvest their data. Why else would they need ring 0 access?
3 days ago
Quoting: KimyrielleQuoting: jensWhy don’t you just apply for the role to fix this?
I don't like corporations enough to want to work for one.
I like your self-confidence! :)
ElectricPrism 3 days ago
OPT IN
Having a Ultimatum instead of Opting-In is so unprofessional of them. Also someday maybe they'll get themselves into trouble for discriminating and classifying entire groups of people as "bad" and "cheaters".
This Low-IQ-Logic is a epidemic on modern culture. Entire groups of people are pre-judged, often by people and groups who would put a halo over their heads and self acclaim to be saints.
The Modern Dark Age Mind.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: BeemerThey should put up stats. I want to see:This type of comment *always* seems to appear, and I'm seeing a lot of it across social media in reply to this news. I'm really surprised people don't understand, so here's it in simple terms.
- Total Linux user count pre-block
- Total of Windows user count
- Pre-block count of users allegedly cheating
- Post-block count of users allegedly cheating
The statements of "we've identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats" and "this will impact a small number of Apex players," seemed a bit at odds. If it's such a small number, how are the hacks "impactful".
They install a cheat into your system to prevent cheating. It honestly should be illegal to do that.
They have all the metrics they need on their end to kick users or ban them. This is exactly whatA.I.expert systems are for.
There's a difference between counted players, and cheaters when these situations appear.
The number of Linux players will be (in percentage terms) low. The statements aren't at odds at all. Even a small number of cheaters can cause huge problems for the whole of the player-base, of which is mostly not-Linux.
You could have 100 Linux players, 1000,000,000 Windows players and 2 people on Linux doing cheats that affect everyone. That's what they mean. We've seen this info repeated by various developers, that Linux enables the cheats because it's harder for devs to block.
Hope people get that now.
I beg to differ. There is the number of players, the subset that are cheating, then further subsets by OS. All cheaters potentially affect all non-cheating players, be it by screwing up rankings, or just making matches unfun or pointless.
Rather than put in resources to fix the problem, they're using Linux players as a scapegoat. Think about it. Given all the choices they had, the one they chose was the least impactful and, more importantly, the cost in resources was almost negligible.
Banning Linux players was easy and cost them very little. And they will still have a cheating problem. As a dev 25 years ago (or more) said, "The client is in the hands of the enemy".
Quoting: EagleDeltaQuoting: TurkeysteaksServer side anticheat is unfortunately a dream (Poor Counter Strike), and cheats only keep getting more sophisticated. Is this problem solvable?
You hit the nail on the head. The problem is not solvable as long as players have access to the hardware.... and even then that likely won't stop it. This is the same problem we see in the InfoSec world. The more sophisticated counters there are to Cheats (and Malware), the more sophisticated workarounds will exist. It's not winnable and the more complex the Anti-Cheat gets, the more complex the Cheats will find be.... and this doesn't even include how OS vendors really want to start isolating applications from the system itself. Besides Docker/Flatpak/Snap on Linux - Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android all have ways to sandbox applications so they don't have direct access to the system.... it's just that none of these systems have, as of yet, been enforced on developers.
It's like Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft trying to stop physical hacks on their consoles. You simply cannot short of creating legal gates to even learning Electronic, Mechanical, Software, Systems, Network, etc Engineering skills.... Kind of like how some Law Enforcement want to hamstring Encryption or make it illegal without realizing that it's just Mathematics... you know that thing you learn in school?
It is *client-side* anti-cheat that is the pipe dream, for the very reason that the players have access to that end. That's why client-side will never really work. Only ones to tell you the client-side is the way to go are the ones making $$$ from it.
It's all in the metrics at the server-side with proper data-analytics. Gather the data and the patterns for cheating will be right there.
Quoting: robvvMostly negative reviews now on the Steam forums. This is the first time I've seen this kind of thing from angry penguins!
I don't find Linux mentioned in the first negative reviews though...
Quoting: EikeI don't find Linux mentioned in the first negative reviews though...
I counted nine just scrolling down a few lines on the main page. Some examples:
"'Sorry but if we can't install a rootkit on your system we can't allow you to play the game.'
Helpful?"
"Cannot play on Linux anymore"
"Removing steamdeck and linux support is the proper way to let the users hate much more EA and Respawn. I couldn't be more sad to see one of the best games die this way, first caring only about making money instead of fixing the game and now force people to use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ OS that is windows."
"Suddenly I cannot play on Linux after many years. Why?"
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