Grand Theft Auto On-line has, in an eyebrow-raising transfer, been given an anti-cheat software program named BattlEye over a decade after the sport got here out. As a consequence, it is now formally not suitable with the Steam Deck, per Valve’s personal retailer web page for the sport and an official FAQ from Rockstar.
That is a fairly dramatic shift, contemplating GTA 5—and, probably, GTA On-line—was previously considered one of Valve’s top-played Steam Deck video games. It is even nonetheless on the leaderboards on the time of writing. Now, it is bought a giant ol’ “unsupported” sticker.
Rockstar’s FAQ and the 1.69 patch updates affirm that is intentional, at the least in the intervening time. Each learn: “Steam Deck doesn’t help BattlEye for GTA On-line. It is possible for you to to play GTA 5 Story Mode however unable to play GTA On-line”.
As The Verge factors out, that is even though there are video games with BattlEye that are Steam Deck suitable. Proton, a compatibility layer that permits Linux customers to play Home windows video games (the Steam Deck’s SteamOS software program relies on Linux), is on the root of the issue: Merely put, video games utilizing BattlEye won’t run on Steam Deck out of the field, so to talk. Nonetheless, BattlEye will be enabled so long as the developer reaches out to the anti-cheat vendor.
“BattlEye on Proton integration has reached some extent the place all a developer must do is attain out BattlEye to allow it for his or her title,” Valve mentioned again in 2021. “No extra work is required by the developer apart from that communication.” In the identical 12 months, BattlEye additionally proudly introduced it could help Proton: “This will probably be performed on an opt-in foundation with sport builders selecting whether or not they need to enable it or not.”
All this to say, whereas Rockstar’s declare that the Steam Deck does not help BattlEye for GTA On-line is technically true, the onus seems to be on Rockstar to type that out until one thing has modified. Regardless of this, each the FAQ and the updates state that “all technical help questions needs to be directed to Valve’s Steam Deck help content material and group.”
Because of this, there have been some detrimental critiques left on Steam over the previous couple of days—I might hesitate to name this a bomb simply but, since there are about 20,876 critiques up to now 30 days, and the present grumblings have not made a dent within the general percentile but. Nonetheless, critiques yesterday tilted in direction of a coin flip, with 626 optimistic and 602 detrimental. There’s murmuring of an rebellion, at the least.
Whether it is certainly the case that Rockstar’s being too cussed to ask BattlEye if they might flip the ‘works with Steam Deck’ change on, then that is a baffling set of selections to me, particularly contemplating how a lot financial institution GTA On-line makes for Rockstar. I’ve reached out to each Rockstar and BattlEye for remark, and I am going to replace this text if I obtain a response.
