Battlefield 1 acquired an replace on October 22 that up to date the sport’s anti-cheat and within the course of eliminated any compatibility for the Steam Deck. This isn’t the primary EA recreation to undertake an anti-cheat that isn’t Linux-friendly, but it surely’s painful nonetheless to see one other recreation disappear from the Steam Deck library.
EA is utilizing EA Anti-Cheat (EAAC) in most of its in-house printed video games now, and the system isn’t appropriate with one of the best handheld gaming PC. Actually, it’s not appropriate with Linux in any respect, and it’s led to a dialogue round simply how giant the Steam Deck consumer base is that if giant publishers are completely happy to take away compatibility with out regret. This additionally just lately occurred to GTA 5 on Steam Deck, the place an replace additionally added an anti-cheat that’s incompatible with Valve’s handheld.
This EAAC replace for Battlefield 1 was due in September however was delayed by a month for unknown causes. Now, the favored WWII FPS, which nonetheless averages between 10-15k gamers day by day, joins video games equivalent to F1 24, EA WRC 24, Battlefield V, and others which are Unsupported on Steam Deck resulting from EAAC.
Nervous players are actually eyeing up one of many few remaining EA video games with out EAAC, Apex Legends, and questioning if an replace will likely be coming quickly. The sport already makes use of Simple Anti-Cheat, a program that’s Linux pleasant, however EA seem like on a cost to maneuver all of its video games underneath the identical umbrella.
This transfer has additionally triggered a dialogue on r/SteamDeck as to simply how large the Steam Deck consumer base is, as no such figures are available. One estimate from installbaseforum makes use of day by day energetic customers and controller statistics to counsel there could possibly be an estimated 1.98M energetic customers every month taking part in on a Steam Deck.
It is a appreciable variety of gamers to instantly lockout of your recreation, however when taken as a proportion in opposition to the entire common month-to-month Steam customers, it represents simply 1.5% of gamers.
If you wish to know what one of the best Steam Deck video games are (that also work), you may take a look at our hand-picked information for peace of thoughts.