First two games with BattlEye anti-cheat software work on SteamOS with Proton

By admin On Nov 7, 2021

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Valve says that the first game studios with games that use the BattlEye anti-cheat software have taken the necessary step to run their game on the Linux-based SteamOS. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and ARK: Survival Evolved.

Valve offers its own fork of Wine called Proton, which makes it possible to run Windows games on SteamOS. While this certainly pays off, games with anti-cheat software like BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat are a stumbling block; the software does not recognize and trust the system and then will not start. Recently, however, the makers of those two pieces of software have announced that they will be introducing compatibility for Proton. Valve has an interest in good compatibility with Linux and Proton, because in the near future it will release its Steam Deck, a gaming handheld that runs on the Linux-based SteamOS.

The only remaining requirement for a BattlEye game to work with Proton is that the game makers signal BattlEye to enable compatibility, according to Valve. That has now happened in these two cases. It is not clear whether it is also that simple to get a game running on Proton with Easy Anti-Cheat.

Proton is integrated into the Steam client for Linux, under the name Steam Play. As a result, gamers don’t have to do anything extra to get the games running. By default, the feature only updates Valve whitelisted games, but you can enable Proton for any Windows game, at the risk of sub-optimal results. There doesn’t seem to be an official list of Valve whitelisted games, but users of the unofficial protondb are tracking compatibility progress for a total of about 20,500 games. Valve will keep track of which games work well on the Steam Deck, but that information is not currently visible in a Windows environment.

Proton is a fork of Wine, with improvements made. In addition, it uses vk3d, a Direct3D 12 implementation based on Vulkan and wine3d with tweaks and improvements for Direct3D 9 and 11 games. Steamworks also works with Proton.