Epic won’t update Fortnite to run on the Steam Deck. Tim Sweeney says Linux is ‘a terrifically hard audience to serve’

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Epic Games doesn’t plan to update Fortnite so that it runs on SteamOS, according to CEO Tim Sweeney, meaning owners of the upcoming Valve Steam Deck will likely have to install Windows to play the popular battle-royale game.

In a series of tweets, Sweeney said that the company doesn’t feel confident about its ability to combat cheating in Fortnite when running on custom kernel configurations.

Epic has made its anti-cheat software, Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), compatible with Linux and Proton, so developers that use it should be able to make their games work on the Steam Deck without issue.

When contacted for comment by The Verge, Sweeney described Linux as “a terrifically hard audience to serve given the variety of incompatible configurations.” Asked whether it would be possible to enable compatibility just for SteamOS, he said “Linux is a small market already and if you subdivide it by blessed kernel versions then it’s even smaller.” It may not be worth Epic’s while to put in the work on security for what will be a comparatively tiny audience, at least at first.

Besides, it’s not like Steam Deck owners won’t be able to play Fortnite at all — there’s always the option of installing Windows on the machine.

Sweeney hailed the Steam Deck as an “amazing move by Valve” when it was first announced, calling it “an open platform where users are free to install software [of] their choosing — including Windows and other stores.”

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8 comments

Yes, we know. That article is two years old. Why post it now? Nothing has changed.
Skill issues.
- Here is one I made a long time ago:
I was very surprised yesterday to find out that Unreal Engine now offers native linux builds as well as linux targets. Works flawlessly too. So with all the hate linux seems to be getting from them from what you read in the occasional blog post, they must have devs working only on this support.
- It wouldn't be the first time a CEO was kept in the dark about certain projects.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Epic Games doesn’t plan to update Fortnite so that it runs on SteamOS, according to CEO Tim Sweeney, meaning owners of the upcoming Valve Steam Deck will likely have to install Windows to play the popular battle-royale game.
In a series of tweets, Sweeney said that the company doesn’t feel confident about its ability to combat cheating in Fortnite when running on custom kernel configurations.
Epic has made its anti-cheat software, Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), compatible with Linux and Proton, so developers that use it should be able to make their games work on the Steam Deck without issue.
When contacted for comment by The Verge, Sweeney described Linux as “a terrifically hard audience to serve given the variety of incompatible configurations.” Asked whether it would be possible to enable compatibility just for SteamOS, he said “Linux is a small market already and if you subdivide it by blessed kernel versions then it’s even smaller.” It may not be worth Epic’s while to put in the work on security for what will be a comparatively tiny audience, at least at first.
Besides, it’s not like Steam Deck owners won’t be able to play Fortnite at all — there’s always the option of installing Windows on the machine.
Sweeney hailed the Steam Deck as an “amazing move by Valve” when it was first announced, calling it “an open platform where users are free to install software [of] their choosing — including Windows and other stores.”
The original article contains 315 words, the summary contains 243 words. Saved 23%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
fall guys?
Fortnite is cringe anyway