The Finals’ new anti-cheat update won’t end support for Steam Deck players

Seeing games like The Finals run on the Steam Deck is nothing short of a miracle. It’s not a secret that Unreal Engine 5 titles can be troublesome for Valve’s handheld, but Embark Studios’ gameshow-themed shooter is up to the task. To improve The Finals’ anti-cheat system, Embark Studios is preparing a fresh update to tackle cheaters, but does this pose a threat to the game’s performance on Linux?

The latest set of The Finals patch notes expresses that “a lot of cheats these days use a kernel driver to read and write memory to gain an unfair advantage. This means that they run in a privileged mode in the Windows operating system, making it unlikely and in some cases impossible to detect via Anti-Cheat in the game client.” To eliminate unfair advantages in lobbies across the FPS game, Embark Studios is eager to deploy Anti-Cheat.

For portable gaming consoles using Windows, such as the Asus ROG Ally or Lenovo Legion Go, Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye aren’t too much of a hindrance. The bottom line is that most Steam Deck games are still compatible. As Valve’s handheld relies on Linux, it often makes most multiplayer games incompatible with the console. There are workarounds for some of them, though. Our Fortnite Steam Deck and Black Ops 6 Steam Deck guides can help you on your way.

Embark Studios’ solution to cheaters is rolling out “in the coming months,” but the developer assures it isn’t excluding Steam Deck owners. Over on The Final’s Discord server, community manager Dusty Gustafsson tells players that “there are no plans to drop support for SteamOS, Proton, Wine, and Steam Deck. Despite us not officially supporting the platform, we will do our utmost best to maintain your ability to play.”

Currently, The Finals Steam Deck support stands at ‘playable’ status on the game’s Steam Marketplace listing. In my testing, it’s largely down to a few instances of slightly illegible menu text and rare instances of needing a keyboard that pulls it down on the Steam Deck. Other than that, performance is decent, although much better on ROG Ally.

Adding to Gustafsson’s statement, fellow Embark Studios developer ‘Tvandijck’ says, “we’re working pretty closely with CodeWeavers to QA every release we put out there since about Season 5, and I don’t see a reason to stop that. It’s not exactly a collaboration, but we do catch issues with SteamDeck early because, at the very least, they do a pass on the game before we release a patch.”

Reiterating that while the Steam Deck isn’t The Finals’ primary platform, the studio knows that “there is a pretty passionate and growing player base on Steam Deck.” So there you have it. There’s no need to worry. All you need to think about is your World Tour progress because Emerald status is quite the grind. Or you can look forward to the ARC Raiders release date. I know I am.

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