Can you play Rust on Steam Deck?

Rust is a brutal multiplayer survival game in which players start off with a rock and build up resources and craft tools to survive. The open-world environment is made more challenging by the bears and wolves roaming the land and the fact that all the other players are also trying to survive and won’t hesitate to attack you for your resources. To survive, you’ll have to build a base to keep out intruders, and it can be wise to join a clan because there’s safety in numbers.

Since Rust is an older game, released in 2013, the Steam Deck shouldn’t have any problem playing it on the hardware side of things. Though it might be a problem on the software side because the Steam Deck currently isn’t compatible with certain games like Rust that use Easy Anti-cheat software.

As its name suggests, Easy Anti-cheat is popular third-party software that prevents players from hacking and cheating in many popular games like Fortnite and Apex Legends. It’s had some teething issues on the Steam Deck, like being unable to activate on the Linux-based operating system. Valve is working on the issue directly with vendors, and some games, like Apex Legends that weren’t working on release, are now fine to play on the Steam Deck.

So far, Rust isn’t verified as Deck compatible, and users have reported problems when trying to run it. When Youtuber Game Informer tried to run Rust on the Steam Deck, the game started up, but he couldn’t get into any matchmaking lobbies or servers. The anti-cheat software likely causes the problem, and hopefully, it will be resolved in the near future

To find out if your Steam collection is compatible with the Steam Deck, check out the Check My Deck or Great on deck webpages.

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