Back in October 2024, Respawn announced they were blocking Apex Legends on Linux platforms (including Steam Deck). Apparently this has worked quite well for them.
In the latest Apex Legends: Takeover Dev Update video on YouTube they went over various details on what they're doing to improve the game. Steven Ferreira, Game Director on Apex Legends, mentions in the video at about 2 minutes in: "A couple of months ago we blocked Linux access to Apex. And we are pleased to report that we've seen a meaningful reduction in the amount of cheating recently."
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Back in early December 2024, they also made a post on X/Twitter to show a continued reduction in cheating:
Does this mean Linux users / players are cheaters or cheat more than players on other platforms? Well, no. The issue is mainly that cheat makers like to run their exploits on Linux whenever they can, so blocking Linux as a platform is the easiest and bluntest tool game developers have to combat the problem. On Windows, they have kernel-level access for their anti-cheat that they don't have on Linux as well (although the benefit of that is debatable).
The same situation happened with survival game Rust, as noted by developer Alistair McFarlane back in 2022:
When we discontinued linux support in 2019, one of the core reasons was how the cheating community was exploiting the Linux platform. That's not to say that cheating was super widespread on Linux, but it was safer for cheat developers.
Presumably that's why GTA Online was blocked as well even though it also uses anti-cheat that supports Linux.
Anti-cheat is just going to remain an issue for Linux gaming for a long time it seems, until we see more Steam Decks getting sold and regularly used, along with SteamOS expanding onto more devices. It's going to be the big elephant in the room if Valve did build a living room Steam Console.
Check out anti-cheat game compatibility on our dedicated page.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
mr-victory 3 hours ago
Last edited by Pyrate on 5 Feb 2025 at 6:11 pm UTC
What's not known is whether those players went back to Windows when they blocked Linux. I doubt it, because the whole video reeks of desperation. In just 12 months, this game has dropped from a daily average player base of 450K to just 130K.
Still healthy, I guess. But dying. I guess the player base is also starting to resent all the £75 skins and £10 colour reskins. Finally.
EA are gonna EA tho. They won't change.
As a big battlefield fan, I am ready to make peace with not being able to play it on Linux from here on out. I was always hoping that Apex Legends being Linux friendly would open those doors but it seems like it may be a lost cause. Dragon Age Veilguard seemed like a change of heart for EA, but alas, singleplayer linux games are commonplace.
I will continue to champion The FINALS as a beacon of peak Linux multiplayer gaming. Ironic that it's from ex battlefield/DICE devs.
I will continue to champion The FINALS as a beacon of peak Linux multiplayer gaming.
I'd add in Marvel Rivals as well. Even better there as they use their own in-house solution, so I expect more competence there. Also, they're not western devs so I expect higher standards as well.
And even if we let that "questionable" conclusion slide, blocking Linux is still just a very poor excuse for "we're too cheap for proper server side anticheat"...
In a few years EA has no choice then to give in into the linux community, linux is growing and growing (thanks to steamos). It’s a matter of time before they say “we developed the ea app for linux and we have integrated the eac into linux as well”
theannoyingfruit 1 hour ago
Schattenspiegel 59 minutes ago
Funny how the drop and rise of the "infected" matches follows the the curve of players actually playing the game in that week.
BladePupper 49 minutes ago
blindcoder 36 minutes ago
The drop trend started way before the Linux support removal and the trend continued practically unaltered after the removal.
Mind numbing. How can you say we blocked linux and added additional security measures and then say so linux is why we saw a reduction in cheaters.
Exactly. Blocking a whole platform from playing, and adding new security measures (which I'd bet is what's doing the heavy lifting here), and after all of that, only a -33% decrease in an already established downward trend, AND it went up again not long after? Not impressed at all.
They tried their best to make this sound like a victory, and that Linux is to blame, but even through their bullshit talk one can clearly deduce Linux doesn't actually have this supposed cheating problem all these incomptent devs are using as scapegoat when they run out of ideas.
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