Ahead of the Steam Deck’s launch on February 25, Tim Sweeney has confirmed on Epic Games doesn’t have plans to support Fortnite for Valve’s handheld gaming device. In response to a question by another Twitter user, Sweeney explained that Epic is working hard to improve Easy Anti Cheat’s compatibility for the Steam Deck–but just not for Fortnite.
Though Fortnite isn’t available on Steam, the Steam Deck is designed as an open platform, meaning users can install games outside of Steam’s storefront. Like other large, online multiplayer titles, Fortnite faces issues with its anti-cheat software on the Steam Deck’s Linux-based OS.
In response to a question asking whether Epic would update Fortnite “to make Proton/Wine be compatible with EAC and BattlEye anti-cheat on Linux.” In response, Sweeney answered that there were no plans to update Fortnite, but that there’s “a big effort underway” to improve Easy Anti Cheat for other games on the Steam Deck.
Fortnite no, but there’s a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
When asked why Fortnite was excluded from that initiative, Sweeney explained that it was mainly a matter of scale, with anti-cheat requirements differing vastly depending how many regular players a game gets.
We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
The threat model for anti-cheat varies per game based on the number of active players and ability to gain profit by selling cheats or gain prominence by cheating. Hence anti-cheat which suffices for one game may not for another game with 10, 100, or 1000 times more players.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
When replying to users who pointed out that Sweeney didn’t seem to have much faith in his company’s own product, the CEO agreed that they were right, “with regard to anti-cheat on the Linux platform supporting custom kernels and the threat model to a game of Fortnite’s size.” In another reply, he pointed out that Fortnite’s 60 million active players made it a much different case to other games using Easy Anti Cheat.
While some players have suggested that Sweeney isn’t keen on having Epic’s biggest title playable on a rival’s hardware, it’s more likely that the Steam Deck is too niche for Epic to want to put in the effort to guarantee compatibility. “The market for non-Steam-hosted games on limited availability Steam Deck hardware is how big exactly?” Sweeney asked one user in the replies to his original tweet.
Not long after the Steam Deck was originally announced, Sweeney was one of its first outspoken fans. In a tweet, he called the device an “amazing move” by Valve, specifically praising Steam’s open-platform approach to the device.
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