Apex Legends Removes Steam Deck & Linux Support Effective Immediately

Apex Legends is removing its Steam Deck and Linux access effective immediately, citing consistent cheating as the reason. Devs explained that the openness of Linux systems makes them both attractive for cheaters and harder to detect.

"The data shows that [these cheats] are growing at a rate that requires an outsized level of focus and attention from the team for a relatively small platform," the team wrote. "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."

Players will still be able to play on Steam Deck, but only if they choose to install Windows; Linux is the default operating system on these devices. Play on Linux will not be available whatsoever from here on out, though players on Steam or other supported platforms won't be affected.

"We had to weigh the decision on the number of players who were legitimately playing on Linux/the Steam Deck versus the greater health of the population of players for Apex," the team wrote in an update on X/Twitter. "While the population of Linux users is small, their impact infected a fair amount of players’ games. This ultimately brought us to our decision today."