If you’re a fan of the GTA series and the owner of a Steam Deck, there’s a decent chance you’ve heard about the recent drop in support for GTA Online on the Deck. This is due to the introduction of BattlEye anti-cheat and its lack of compatibility with the device’s Linux-based operating system, SteamOS.
While this should only affect the online portion of the game (you can disable BattlEye in the Rockstar Games Launcher settings for single-player) it’s still a major blow to the player base. Off the back of this, Grand Theft Auto V has officially lost its ‘Playable’ status on Steam, now relegated to ‘Unsupported’. However, Valve is now reportedly working with Rockstar to make amends.
Valve is reportedly working on a fix for GTA V & GTA Online support on Steam Deck
Reaction to news of BattlEye implementation in GTA Online was mixed, understandably with a heavy amount of backlash from Steam Deck owners or those using Linux on desktop. Windows users may be happy with the long-awaited solution to cheating, but locking out legitimate players is never the answer.
On the bright side, according to a Reddit post from u/notjordansime, who has been in contact with Steam Support, Valve is “currently working with Rockstar Games to find a fix”. Do note that these are the words of the support branch, so we wouldn’t say it exactly equates to a ‘big’ official announcement – but it’s a glimmer of hope.
In the message to Steam Support pictured above, ‘JS’ points out how the Playable tag is misleading – though this has now been changed. What we’re more interested in is their argument for Deck support in the Online portion of the game, rightfully explaining that “Valve has made efforts to enable developers to easily enable anti-cheating systems in their games on Linux”.
We don’t truly know how easy this would be for Rockstar Games to implement, we’re not game devs, but it’s known that BattlEye on Proton integration has been a thing for a while now – this 2021 blog post highlights a few titles using BattlEye anti-cheat getting support for Steam Deck. The post would suggest that it could be a simple fix and reads as follows:
“BattlEye on Proton integration has reached a point where all a developer needs to do is reach out BattlEye to enable it for their title. No additional work is required by the developer besides that communication. Partners have started turning on BattlEye support for their titles, meaning these games are now working on Steam Deck.”
Steam
