Many Fortnite fans may be disappointed, as it has been revealed that Epic's battle royale game won't land on Valve's Steam Deck handheld.
Recently, Twitter user Stormy178 asked Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, if there are any "plans to update Fortnite to make Proton/Wine compatible with EAC and BattleEye anti-cheat on Linux?" To this, Sweeney quickly replied that it was not. However, he did reiterate that "a huge effort is underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat's compatibility with Steam Deck".
Asked why Fortnite wouldn't get an update to make it compatible with Proton, a compatible layer for Microsoft Windows games running on a Linux-based operating system like Steam Deck, Sweenery explained. "We don't have the confidence to be able to crack down on fraud at scale across a wide range of kernel configurations, including custom configurations."
The phrase led others to ridicule the CEO, with some claiming he apparently had no trust in his product. In response, Sweeney tweeted that "the anti-cheat on the Linux platform to support a custom kernel and whether it is difficult to adapt to a game of the size of Fortnite, the answer is, exactly right"
That wasn't Sweeney's closing remark on Twitter. Although Sweeney explained why Fortnite did not land on Steam Deck, others had reservations.
Musspell21 continued the discussion on Twitter: "Admit it. You just don't like your star game appearing on your opponent's platform."
However, Sweeney simply replied, "Epic would be happy to put Fortnite on Steam." But we're not willing to give Steam 20-30 percent of its income for this privilege." He went on to say that support for Steam Deck hardware is "a separate issue."
Even without Fortnite, countless other games will be compatible with Valve's new hardware.
Games such as the Tomb Raider series and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt have been listed as "playable" on steam Deck. Other games such as Only Wolves: Shadow Gone Twice and Final Fantasy have been listed as "in the pipeline.")