Steam Deck seems to have quietly gained support for another popular online game — no anticheat block anymore

Despite tens of thousands of games supporting the Steam Deck and other SteamOS handhelds, there's a constant road block; anticheat.

There are a number of games that have anticheat working on Linux, aka SteamOS, and now it looks like there's another.

The Amazon Games-published MMO, Lost Ark, seems to have joined the party, as highlighted by GamingOnLinux. This is despite any sign of an official announcement.

Lost Ark has been available sporadically in the past on Steam Deck with a working anticheat, though in each case it was then removed. According to GamingOnLinux, the latest instance, looks more promising, though.

It appears that Lost Ark's Easy Anti Cheat software has been re-enabled on the Steam Deck for at least the last couple of weeks, and works flawlessly with Proton 9.0.4. GamingOnLinux goes on to confirm it's a simple "click and play" experience, with no tinkering or launch options required.

Hopefully it's a long-term play, though signs are certainly promising right now.

But why is anticheat still an issue? The short version is that generally the software is built primarily for Windows. There are some anticheat solutions that do have Linux compatibility, though, including Easy Anti Cheat (EAC) as seen here.

It would be nice if Epic Games, the provider of EAC, would turn it on for Fortnite to be played on the Steam Deck, but that highlights the second issue. Anticheat support for Linux, aka, SteamOS in this case, is on an opt-in basis.

It's a similar story with Battleye, supported on Linux, but in games such as Destiny 2, remains disabled. The anticheat working is only half the battle, developers have to want to support it.

That support also extends to making sure players on SteamOS have a good experience. A task which some making games are more committed to than others. As such, it's still unlikely some titles will ever become supported on SteamOS handhelds.

EA, as one example, has actively decided that Linux, and as a result SteamOS, is a path through for a variety of cheats and so, bye bye support. Nothing about the overwhelming majority of gamers using Windows, or anything, but that's the situation as described.

But let's take a win for the Steam Deck when it comes, in any case.