Electronic Arts has locked Steam Deck players out of its co-op shooter, Apex Legends.

Stating that “the openness of Linux operating systems makes it attractive to cheaters and cheat developers”, EA stated that making its game available on the Linux system – such as Apex Legends – is “an avenue for a variety of impact exploits. and deceptions.”

Developer Respawn said it had no choice as there was “no reliable way” to tell the difference between legitimate Steam Deck players and “a malicious cheat pretending to be a Steam Deck”.

“We’re telling you today that Linux (and Steam Deck using Linux) will no longer be able to access Apex Legends.” said community manager, Mako.

“Our development team wanted to provide a little more context on this and share some of the decision-making process that took place along the way. As mentioned in our previous document anti-cheat dev blogcompetitive integrity is a top priority for our team and there are many ways we fight cheaters – this is one to add to the list.

“In our efforts to combat Apex cheating, we have identified the Linux operating system as a pathway for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats. As a result, we decided to block access to the Linux operating system to the game. While this will impact a small number of Apex players, we believe the decision will significantly reduce instances of cheating in our game.”

“We had to weigh the decision against the number of players who were legitimately playing on Linux/Steam Deck versus the greater health of the player population for Apex. While the population of Linux users is small, their impact has infected a fairly large amount of players’ games, which ultimately brought us to our decision today,” the statement concluded.

As a result, the Steam storefront for Repawn’s free-to-play Battle Royale, which was previously listed as “playable”, now unequivocally states that Steam Deck compatibility is “not supported”. Respawn insists that this decision will not affect Apex players on Steam PC.

It will be interesting to see if other competitive game makers follow suit.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson spoke to investors earlier this week during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Asked about the company’s live streaming efforts and the next season of Respawn’s Apex Legends shooter, Wilson said the battle royale is in an “incredibly good position” in the live streaming market with a “strong brand, a very strong mechanic. , and a very engaged global community,” suggesting It may be a while before we see Apex Legends 2.