EA bans Linux gamers from Apex Legends to 'meaningfully reduce' cheating in the battle royale

EA has made the decision to block Linux gamers - including, of course, Steam Deck owners (at least those who haven't switched away from SteamOS) - from playing its popular battle royale, Apex Legends.

In a Reddit post, EA explains that it has "identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats."

Due to that, there's been a decision made to block those running a Linux distro from partaking of the game, due to balancing up the small number of Linux players with the apparently considerable instances of cheating that take place.

In short, there are not that many Apex Legends players on Linux, and apparently they are having a disproportionately large impact in terms of cheats being leveraged, and game sessions being ruined as a result.

As EA puts it:

"While this will impact a small number of Apex players, we believe the decision will meaningfully reduce instances of cheating in our game."

The post further notes:

"Linux cheats are indeed harder to detect and the data shows that they are growing at a rate that requires an outsized level of focus and attention from the team for a relatively small platform. There are also cases in which cheats for the Windows OS get emulated as if it's on Linux in order to increase the difficulty of detection and prevention."

Apex Legends uses Easy Anti-Cheat for its cheat prevention software.

Steam Deck owners aren't best pleased with the move, of course, as it's the loss of a supported online game, and one that ran well on the handheld - but broadly, it's rather a reflection of Linux gaming still being a niche scene.

When (or if, perhaps) the ranks of non-Windows gamers grow, game publishers may start to think differently, but clearly this was becoming a headache for EA, and it has taken the easy way out to placate the majority of the Apex Legends player base.