Wuthering Waves arrives on Steam, another with anti-cheat problems on Steam Deck and Desktop Linux

Update 12:00 BST: the developer recently edited the Steam page description to note:

We're working to resolve Wuthering Waves' compatibility with STEAM DECK and will share updates in the community. Thanks for your understanding!

Unless they completely change the anti-cheat though or ACE gets a big update, it's still going to cause problems with anything that isn't specifically Steam Deck and SteamOS together. I've reached out to the developer to chat about it.

Original article below:

Here we go again. Wuthering Waves has now released on Steam from KURO GAMES and it appears to be having problems on Steam Deck and Desktop Linux due to the anti-cheat being used.

Much like Delta Force and the recent Steam release of Infinity Nikki, it uses Anti-Cheat Expert (ACE). ACE can allow the Steam Deck to work, only sometimes though. It's a really weird one because it seems the developers of ACE do some device whitelisting, and at times games with ACE only work on specific models of Steam Deck (either LCD or OLED) and not always both.

For this one, there's many reports filling up the Steam forum about issues with it.

I've tested across the Steam Deck LCD, Steam Deck OLED and Desktop Linux today and it didn't appear to let me actually play on any of them.

The first launch on my Steam Deck LCD gave me a black screen with audio, but pressing the B button showed an extra in-game download happening with a logo splash screen. After restarting once that was done, the game loaded to allow me to do their extra third-party account registration (annoying) and then to make a character. As soon as I tried joining though, the anti-cheat kicked me out.

While on Desktop Linux, I wasn't able to get anything to appear at all. The situation is exactly the same on Steam Deck OLED as both just go right back to the Steam Library. Re-testing then on my Steam Deck LCD, and it did still at least load to the menu. It seems they might go further than just whitelisting the Steam Deck as a device with ACE, I'm starting to think it locks out additional Linux systems once you've logged into one which may be why some people see it working on one Deck but others do not.

Really frustrating. Valve need to sort this situation out if they want the Steam Deck and future SteamOS devices to continue to be a success for more players. Online multiplayer as a whole for Linux platforms from Steam Deck to Desktop is getting messy due to so many different types of anti-cheat and their various different detection and blocking methods.

You can see more anti-cheat compatibility on our dedicated page. And follow our anti-cheat article tag.