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Today, Easy Anti-Cheat from Epic Games / Epic Online Services has officially announced a full expansion for Linux including native builds and Wine + Proton. This is big for Linux Gaming and the Steam Deck.

For those who don't know, Epic Games owns Easy Anti-Cheat and earlier this year they made it free for all developers making Windows games. Today this has been expanded to fully support developers doing native Linux games (and macOS too).

Not only that, this is the big one we've been waiting for — they've also expanded Easy Anti-Cheat support officially for the Wine and Steam Play Proton compatibility layers.

Earlier this year, Easy Anti-Cheat for Windows games was made available to all developers, for free. Today, we extend support to Linux and Mac for developers who maintain full native builds of their games for these platforms.

To make it easy for developers to ship their games across PC platforms, support for the Wine and Proton compatibility layers on Linux is included. Starting with the latest SDK release, developers can activate anti-cheat support for Linux via Wine or Proton with just a few clicks in the Epic Online Services Developer Portal.

Sadly it's not an automatic thing for Wine and Proton, as developers do need to actively go and do those "few clicks" but it's a huge step. In the documentation, it says how developers need to "test and activate client module updates for Linux regularly in addition to Windows". Hopefully many developers will go and do it, since it sounds like very little effort on their part. Considering just how many of the most popular games use Easy Anti-Cheat, this is the start of something massive.

Have a favourite Windows game that doesn't work on Linux currently with Proton or Wine? Looks like it's time to politely ask them to hook it up. Just a few of those that would hopefully work if developers update include:

  • Apex Legends
  • Dead by Daylight
  • Fall Guys
  • Halo: The Master Chief Collection
  • Rust

A good time to remind game developers and readers to ensure you email us news tips, especially if a game enables this to start working so we don't miss it.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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114 comments
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Dribbleondo Sep 23, 2021
Quoting: dubigrasuSo, Fortnite?

If memory serves, it uses EAC and BattlEye, and switches between the two. I could be very wrong.


Last edited by Dribbleondo on 23 September 2021 at 7:05 pm UTC
McMarius11 Sep 23, 2021
  • Supporter
awesome news!
GodofGrunts Sep 23, 2021
I wonder what province Timmy is moving too.
ThatOneGuy Sep 23, 2021
Another barrier lifted for Linux Gaming!
It just keeps getting better and better.
elmapul Sep 23, 2021
i was trying to figure out what anti cheat solution an specific game uses and found this usefull site:

https://levvvel.com/games-with-kernel-level-anti-cheat-software/

here is the ammount of games per anti cheat software (according to this site wich probably is incomplete)

easy anti cheat 140 games

battle eye 42 games (valve is working on it)
esea (1 game, from valve)
faceit (1 game, from valve)

still missing
equ8 (5 games)
mhyprot2 (2 games)
nprotect gameguard 15 games
punk buster 52 games
ten project (1 games)
vanguard (1 games)
xigncode3 (6 games)

speaking of non steam games, all EA/dice games seem to be using punk buster, as for ubisoft, they seem to be spread among many solutions

[update]
i said all EA/dice games were using punk buster, but thats only true EA developed games, not EA published games.
some EA published games were made using easy anti cheat, i'm not sure if most of then are still active.


Last edited by elmapul on 23 September 2021 at 8:01 pm UTC
Kimyrielle Sep 23, 2021
Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to make developers perform a "few clicks" to enable other platform support. Developers quite frankly shouldn't have a say about what platforms people run their software on. Just enable it for all EAC games, with no way to turn it off. :S
Pikolo Sep 23, 2021
They do say it requires "the latest SDK" before the option can be tweaked on the Developer Portal. I wouldn't be shocked if many games shipped with an older SDK, though I'd love to be surprised.
Sil_el_mot Sep 23, 2021
Soooo... Fortnite uses eac? Right?
CountVlad Sep 23, 2021
Quoting: rustybroomhandleWe're about to find out how little some of these publishers/developers actually care about Linux. "just a few clicks", can they be bothered?
Maybe not to begin with, but if the Steam Deck becomes popular they won't want to be left behind by their competitors who can be bothered.
Mohandevir Sep 23, 2021
Quoting: dubigrasuSo, Fortnite?

Yeah... For that to happen, Epic will have to make the few clicks... It's not a given!
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