The short version
- Epic has announced Easy Anti-Cheat for Linux v2, a new version of the anti-cheat used by Fortnite and many other online games.
- It checks that your Linux PC is locked down at a system level, instead of installing a deep anti-cheat driver like Windows games often do.
- Fortnite gets a Linux pilot first. There's no date yet.
- The Steam Deck doesn't support the features v2 needs. Epic says it's talking to Valve.
What anti-cheat actually does
Cheats work by reading or changing a game's memory while it runs. That's how wallhacks see players through walls and aimbots snap to heads.
Anti-cheat tries to spot that. On Windows, many big games go further and run a kernel-level driver. The kernel is the core of the operating system, the part with full control of the machine. Running there lets anti-cheat watch for cheats that hide below normal apps.
Why Linux was the hard part
Easy Anti-Cheat has worked on Linux since 2014, and with Proton (the tool that runs Windows games on Linux, including on the Steam Deck) since 2021. But the protection was weaker than on Windows, so many developers didn't switch it on.
The problem is that Linux has no single kernel. Users can build and change their own, which also makes it easy to load cheats deep in the system. Tim Sweeney said earlier that Epic lacked the confidence to fight cheating "at scale" across so many Linux kernel setups.
How v2 works instead
Rather than adding its own driver, v2 checks that the PC is running in a trusted state. The list is long:
- A signed kernel and signed modules, including NVIDIA drivers
- TPM 2.0, Secure Boot with well-known keys, and measured boot
- IOMMU, kernel lockdown in integrity mode, and kexec turned off
The well-known keys cover distros like Ubuntu (Canonical), Fedora, Debian, openSUSE and Rocky, plus Microsoft's UEFI key. A small anti-cheat service then runs only while a protected game is open.
If your setup fails a check, you get an error, not a ban. Epic suggests a separate boot option for protected games if you like a custom setup the rest of the time.
On paper, that's a sensible trade. Players who stick to a mainstream distro shouldn't need to change much.
What to watch: the Fortnite Linux pilot, and whether Valve adds what the Steam Deck needs.
