Ubisoft's FOR HONOR will block SteamOS / Linux players starting September 10
Ubisoft has announced that FOR HONOR will block all SteamOS and Linux players on September 10. The game uses Easy Anti-Cheat, currently enabled for Linux, but Ubisoft plans to disable it, making the game unplayable on Linux Desktop, Steam Deck, and Steam Machine. In an official statement, they cite the need to reinforce a fair competitive environment, as they cannot meaningfully deploy protection on Linux. This move follows similar actions by other publishers and is a setback for Linux gaming.
To reinforce a fair competitive environment, the team is introducing additional player safety measures. We are removing For Honor from the Linux platform to ensure a safer environment for our players as we cannot meaningfully deploy protection on this platform.
- buzer
Someone in EU should try to make a complaint to the local authority who is enforcing ePrivacy Directive regarding anti cheats in general. Despite what people think ePD isn't limited to cookies and rather also applies all data read or stored in "terminal equipment" via use of electronic communications networks. I would say anti cheat should usually qualify. If they want to do it without consent then they need to show that it's strictly necessary for the service user specifically requested (and that applies for each piece of data written/read, including the OS information).
There's good argument that anti cheat itself would need to be consent based. If you don't accept then you simply don't get placed in games with users who have it enabled.
- trashb
This is funny since they are literally using "Easy Anti Cheat" and that fully supports Linux.
From what I understand Easy Anti Cheat, makes it very easy for developers to run on Linux, basically it is a compile setting to support it. It is one of the anti-cheat providers that had decent Linux support since the beginning.
Back before Proton and when it was new developers often denied requests for turning on Linux support, however this is the first time I head a developer actively turning it off.
I think it speaks volumes of their intent that the game is to be "fully removed from the Linux platform", and they won't offer the single player experience or non competitive experience for Linux based customers.
On top of that it seems to me they tried sneaking this statement in an announcement titled "Ranked FAQ". This shows they have no respect for their customers.
https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/epic-online-services/platform...
- jorvi
This stuff should only be legal if companies are forced to return you the full purchase price of the game.
- Ithildin
Going forward, I simply will not be purchasing any game that does not work on Linux. I realize that I'll be missing out on some titles, but Windows simply isn't worth the headache. CachyOS has been working great for me. Proton has been amazing. I have had zero problems with the games I typically play -- some of which are multiplayer. Luckily, I have not run into anti-cheat issues yet.
- Insanity
I recently moved to Linux for gaming. Last time I tried was around 2008 and I guess I was reluctant to move gaming to Linux because that experience was far from smooth.
Honestly, it's like magic that I can run "The Finals" on highest settings without any hiccup. It literally 'just works'. Happy that I could completely get rid of Windows (it was only there for gaming). It's still hard to believe, given back in 2008 when playing CS I had framerate bugs, text would not render properly (even after messing around with it for some days), and mouse input was.. not ideal. It's come a long way since the days of WINE.
FWIW, I moved from Debian to "Nobara Linux" for this. Mostly because I was in the mood for some distro hopping as well. Highly recommend the experience. (https://nobaraproject.org/). It was a smooth experience from the start, no issues installing it, drivers worked out-of-the-box, audio settings all worked fine, and Steam was pre-installed as well. Super cool.
Would not move back to Windows gaming for Ubisoft games lol.
- unpopularopp
That's the caveat of Proton. Running games on unsupported platforms they are not meant for. And if it doesn't work who's fault that? Valve? The dev? No one because it's open source so fix your own?
Honestly Valve should have a stricter warning if a game is Windows only
- scronkfinkle
There's a couple different ways to look at this. From a charitable point of view to ubisoft, they do not advertise support for Linux. Instead they openly state it's a window's only game. So when a third party (i.e. Valve) makes shim that grants linux functionality, it's not really on Ubisoft to maintain that.
However, from a consumer perspective, this is incredibly frustrating. The average person does not think of "linux vs. windows". They just bought the steam deck and when they bought For Honor it was sold on that "platform". Again, it's hard to blame Ubisoft for this conundrum since they were never necessarily trying to be steam deck compliant to begin with, but it definitely feels wrong to take the game away from a player in this perspective.
All that being said, historically across many games such as Rust, many are quick to blame linux for cheating, but pragmatically banning linux has yet to measurably reduce the amount of cheating that players report experiencing, so I don't agree with the decision at all. It's a footgun disguised as a band aid
- vsviridov
When you though Ubisoft can't get any worse...