Will Apex Legends ever come back to Linux?

PM and Editor

Publish Date: December 3, 2024

Respawn earlier blocked Linux access to Apex Legends to combat cheaters, but is the game returning to Linux at all?

It’s no secret that Apex Legends has a cheating problem. From casual players to esports pros, everyone is frustrated by cheaters in the game, who seem to increase despite supposedly new security layers. Early in November, Respawn deduced that Linux is to blame to some extent, barring Steam Deck users from Apex Legends.

It’s been a full month of testing the lockout, and some fans are hopeful that Respawn may bring Apex Legends back to Linux.

Is Apex Legends coming back to Linux?

Apex Legends probably isn’t coming back to Linux or Steam Deck as excluding the OS led to a noticeable drop in cheaters.

Since the lockout, players have reported a noticeable decline in encounters with cheaters. According to many, there are now fewer instances of blatant cheaters who were once a constant presence in their games. This suggests that Linux-based cheaters, who are inherently harder to detect by non-kernel-level anti-cheat systems, may have been a significant factor. While some players believe nothing has changed, a large majority has observed a reduction in cheating.

In light of this, Respawn might choose to maintain the lockout. This is due to Apex Legends anti-cheat’s subpar performance at filtering out cheaters. Removing Steam Deck support seems like the only thing Respawn can do at the moment to reduce cheaters, even if it’s by a small percentage.

Additionally, many top titles no longer support Linux for the same reason Respawn presented. Linux cheats are harder to detect since the system can’t reliably tell the difference between a legitimate Steam Deck and a cheater pretending to be one using Linux.

Call of Duty, Fortnite, and a few other titles don’t support Linux due to the invasive nature of anti-cheats. While Easy Anti-Cheat is less invasive compared to the systems used by those games, Respawn’s decision to remove support for Apex Legends feels more like a last-ditch effort to curb cheating within the game.

Considering all of this, it seems improbable that Apex Legends will make a return to Steam Deck, but fans can still play it by downloading Windows on their OS.