Epic rebuilds Easy Anti-Cheat for Linux, with Fortnite support planned

Epic Games says Fortnite will be playable on Linux in the future, and that it is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) to make that safe. This is an announcement of plans. According to 80 Level, no date has been given for Fortnite on Linux.

EAC has run native Linux game clients since 2014, and Epic later added support for Windows game builds running through Wine/Proton. Per 80 Level's report, those setups could not match the protection EAC offers on Windows. That gap is cited as a main reason many multiplayer games don't support Linux.

The new approach aims to bring protection much closer to Windows. The listed components are a signed kernel and kernel modules, secure boot with attestation, TPM 2.0, measured boot, IOMMU, a kernel lockdown integrity mode, disabled kexec and LSM BPF. Epic has published technical details, which 80 Level links to.

Epic says it will make the improvements available to other developers so they can bring their games to Linux players. It also says it will keep talking with Valve to support Steam hardware devices as far as is technically possible. Steam Deck runs on Linux. EA blocked Apex Legends on it two years ago, citing a path for exploits and cheats.

Epic is also reaching out to leaders in the Linux community and plans to co-host a panel with Jef Spaleta, the Fedora Project leader, on fair competitive gaming on Linux. The same report says Epic's new EGS launcher is now available on Linux for the first time.

If you ship a multiplayer game and have skipped Linux over anti-cheat, read Epic's technical write-up and check whether the requirements fit your target distributions. Treat the plan as unproven until Epic ships it. This account comes from 80 Level's coverage of Epic's statements.