Battlefield 1 received an update on October 22 that updated the game’s anti-cheat and in the process removed any compatibility for the Steam Deck. This isn’t the first EA game to adopt an anti-cheat that isn’t Linux-friendly, but it’s painful nonetheless to see another game disappear from the Steam Deck library.
EA is using EA Anti-Cheat (EAAC) in most of its in-house published games now, and the system isn’t compatible with the best handheld gaming PC. In fact, it’s not compatible with Linux at all, and it’s led to a discussion around just how large the Steam Deck user base is if large publishers are happy to remove compatibility without remorse. This also recently happened to GTA 5 on Steam Deck, where an update also added an anti-cheat that is incompatible with Valve’s handheld.
This EAAC update for Battlefield 1 was due in September but was delayed by a month for unknown reasons. Now, the popular WWII FPS, which still averages between 10-15k players daily, joins games such as F1 24, EA WRC 24, Battlefield V, and others that are Unsupported on Steam Deck due to EAAC.
Worried gamers are now eyeing up one of the few remaining EA games without EAAC, Apex Legends, and wondering if an update will be coming soon. The game already uses Easy Anti-Cheat, a program that is Linux friendly, but EA appear to be on a charge to move all of its games under the same umbrella.
This move has also triggered a discussion on r/SteamDeck as to just how big the Steam Deck user base is, as no such figures are readily available. One estimate from installbaseforum uses daily active users and controller statistics to suggest there could be an estimated 1.98M active users each month playing on a Steam Deck.
This is a considerable number of players to suddenly lockout of your game, but when taken as a percentage against the total average monthly Steam users, it represents just 1.5% of players.
If you want to know what the best Steam Deck games are (that still work), you can check out our hand-picked guide for peace of mind.