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Some really good news for PC gamers everywhere, as it seems one small battle against invasive anti-cheat has been won.

Recently, DOOM Eternal gained the brand new Denuvo Anti-Cheat tech, which is not to be confused with their usual DRM tech. This addition entirely broke it in the Steam Play Proton compatibility later for Linux and enraged the wider PC community for being added after the game was already released. Just take a look at how the user reviews went on Steam…

On Reddit, id Software made a post to explain their plans for updating DOOM Eternal after the backlash. In the post they explained that the anti-cheat will be removed from the game in the next update. They also said that if/when they try again in future, at minimum they "must consider" that it will have the ability to play single-player without it.

Going even further than that, Michail Greshishchev, the Product Owner at Denuvo claims that Denuvo Anti-Cheat will actually support Proton in future releases. They mentioned this over on Valve's Proton GitHub issue tracker:

Denuvo Anti-Cheat will have Proton support out-of-the-box for releases beyond DOOM: Eternal. Feel free to @ me directly with feedback once you had a chance to try it. I'm happy access is restored for you guys.

It's not entirely clear if they mean it will work with online play, or just auto detect Proton to disable it for single-player parts of games. If they clear that up, we will let you know. Either way, it's good to see because Linux gaming is starting to have more attention paid to it.

DOOM Eternal can be found on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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29 comments
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skinnyraf May 21, 2020
Wow, just wow.

I mean, a kernel-level anti-cheat is still essentially a rootkit, whether it supports Proton or not, but it is nice to see that we are noticed.
Samsai May 21, 2020
We know for a fact that the anti-cheat itself won't support Proton. There's no way they will bother to create a kernel module to replace their rootkit, not to mention even if they did the kernel module would become incompatible in no time. The best they can do is either fall back to a higher trust mode or just disable multiplayer while allowing games to start. Or it's just words to get over this particular PR blunder.
kean May 21, 2020
These programs are basically useless, I gave up on Rust and PUBG, because it was still full of cheaters.
I wish these will support Proton in the future, I would like to play some competitive FPS with my friends while sticking to Linux.
andy155 May 21, 2020
The game is junk anyway compared to Doom 2016


Last edited by andy155 on 21 May 2020 at 9:41 am UTC
rkfg May 21, 2020
Quoting: keanThese programs are basically useless, I gave up on Rust and PUBG, because it was still full of cheaters.
I wish these will support Proton in the future, I would like to play some competitive FPS with my friends while sticking to Linux.
Feels to me like the point of those "anticheats" is not to get rid of cheaters at all... I wonder what their real purpose could be 🤔
fagnerln May 21, 2020
Fantastic news!

I think that anticheat should be AI based on server side, with help from user report.

But IMO is valid new ideas of anticheat, even more intrusive approach if it's optional (only for multiplayer) and if they are transparent in what they are doing, because cheaters destroys the experience from others players.


I hope that more devs look at Linux as a viable platform.

Just a question: how a kernel level anticheat can run on Proton? Isn't this safer than run on Windows itself?
gradyvuckovic May 21, 2020
I am very interested to see how exactly Denuvo handle supporting Proton 'OOTB' with their AntiCheat solution. I'm going to be pretty keenly awaiting the first game that pops up using it.

I'm kinda expecting that Denuvo AntiCheat will detect that it's running in Proton, then inform the user they need to download and install something separately, not 'in Wine' but to their actual PC, perhaps a kernel level Linux anticheat system that does the same job, detecting the game's process (running in Wine) and detecting any tampering.

If that's how it works, it will be interesting to see how many Linux gamers are OK with installing it.
rustybroomhandle May 21, 2020
I don't even know what kernel level means in the context of wine/proton.
KayKay91 May 21, 2020
Quoting: andy155The game is junk anyway compared to Doom 2016
and why is that?
soulsource May 21, 2020
Quoting: rkfg
Quoting: keanThese programs are basically useless, I gave up on Rust and PUBG, because it was still full of cheaters.
I wish these will support Proton in the future, I would like to play some competitive FPS with my friends while sticking to Linux.
Feels to me like the point of those "anticheats" is not to get rid of cheaters at all... I wonder what their real purpose could be 🤔

It's snake oil for publishers.
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