Apex Legends is taking a significant step that’s sure to be unpopular with a good number of players. EA and Respawn Entertainment have announced that the game is dropping support for the Steam Deck. As part of their efforts to combat cheating in the free-to-play battle royale shooter, the companies have identified Linux as an easy pathway for cheats and exploits. That, of course, is the operating system that the Steam Deck runs on, which means support for the portable device is being dropped as well.
“In our efforts to combat cheating in Apex, we’ve identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats,” EA writes. “As a result, we’ve decided to block Linux OS access to the game. While this will impact a small number of Apex players, we believe the decision will meaningfully reduce instances of cheating in our game.
“Linux is used by default on the Steam Deck. There is currently no reliable way for us to differentiate a legitimate Steam Deck from a malicious cheat claiming to be a Steam Deck (via Linux).”
EA explains that with Linux cheats being harder to detect, though the decision to drop support for the OS – and by extension, the Steam Deck – was not an easy one, it was one that was necessary for the game’s health.
“The openness of the Linux operating systems makes it an attractive one for cheaters and cheat developers,” EA explains. “Linux cheats are indeed harder to detect and the data shows that they are growing at a rate that requires an outsized level of focus and attention from the team for a relatively small platform. There are also cases in which cheats for the Windows OS get emulated as if it’s on Linux in order to increase the difficulty of detection and prevention.
“We had to weigh the decision on the number of players who were legitimately playing on Linux/the Steam Deck versus the greater health of the population of players for Apex. While the population of Linux users is small, their impact infected a fair amount of players’ games. This ultimately brought us to our decision today.”
Of course, as EA reminds as well, if you’ve got Windows installed on your Steam Deck, you can still use the device to play Apex Legends– though Linux users are unfortunately out of luck.
“To eliminate this cheat vector, we have made the decision to prevent access to the game for Linux users,” the company says. “This means that Apex Legends will be unplayable immediately for those running this operating system. Playing on handhelds, such as the Steam Deck, is still possible if the user opts to install Windows.”
Apex Legends is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.