Valve’s Steam Deck is being hailed as an unparalleled experience, but its positive reception hasn’t been free from criticism. One big pitfall of the handheld Linux PC is its lack of support from games that have third-party anti-cheat software. That includes games like Rainbow Six Siege, Apex Legends, Dead by Daylight, and more.
Amazon’s New World uses Easy Anti-Cheat and is unplayable on the Steam Deck. This could change in the future, though. Valve implemented support for both BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat but it is down to the developers to flip the switch. New World was tested Feb. 15 and was tagged Unsupported on the Steam Deck Verified games list due to the game’s anti-cheat not being configured for Steam Deck.
Despite Valve supporting third-party anti-cheat software on the Steam Deck, there are still some who can’t reconcile the risks with the benefits. The most notable figure to express the reliability of anti-cheat software on Steam Deck is Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.
“We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones,” said Sweeney in a Twitter thread.
There’s still hope for New World on Steam Deck. Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive is in of a different altogether.
“I can confirm that we plan on updating our EAC to support the Steam Deck in the future, but we can’t confirm a release date at this time,” a studio representative told The Verge.
While Fortnite and Dead by Daylight are fundamentally different games and operate on drastically different levels, there is a precedent for developers that use Easy Anti-Cheat working on Steam Deck support.
If you need to check the rest of your library’s compatibility, try looking at the Great on Deck page or consult this guide to use the CheckMyDeck tool.
