But that’s not the whole story. A recent post on the forum called GamingOnLinux (spotted by Tech Radar), clarifies things a little bit as there is more to be aware of in regards to these games. According to a developer for Warhammer: Vermintide 2, many games that use Easy Anti-Cheat are using an older version of the software. Meanwhile, the version of Easy Anti-Cheat that the Steam Deck supports is newer. Based on Epic Online Services. This could potentially be rectified. By making sure Proton (the compatibility layers that allows Windows games to run on Linux) supports both the newer and older versions of Easy Anti-Cheat. The alternative would be all the games that run on the older anti-cheat software are updated to the newer version. But that’s not exactly a small task.
The Steam Deck may not support games running the older anti-cheat at launch
What this all means for now is that the Steam Deck at launch may not support some games that run the older software. It all depends on when the Steam Deck launches. And whether or not support for the older version of EAC can be added by then or games can update to the newer version. It’s also possible that these games may never be supported by the Steam Deck. As the GamingOnLinux post points out, “ripping out the old EAC and rewriting everything to implement “NuEAC” and potentially asking our entire playerbase to connect through and sign through EOS for an honestly tiny market share that was (and would remain) unsupported from the get go might be a deal breaker.” That statement suggests that support may not be possible, and as the post continues on to say, time will tell. For now, games like Vermintide 2 aren’t supported. And players may need to reconcile with the fact that support may not be there immediately or may never come. That being said, there are still a large number of games that will run on the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is due to start shipping its first wave of units soon. According to Valve, the first wave of shipments are supposed to begin in February. If you reserved a Steam Deck and aren’t sure when yours is coming, there’s an easy way to check. First, you’ll need to login into the Steam website or the Steam windows app. From there, just go to the Steam Deck landing page. Your expected ship date should be listed under the model you reserved.
