I want to be optimistic, bit honestly this to me reads like the non-commital “thanks for your concern, we’ll look into it” consumer service style non-answer.
I hope it ends up somewhere, but I can also see it remaining in their ticketing system for eternity.
I think the Steam Deck is a platform that devs are aware of, and I’m sure they don’t want to alienate that segment of their sales. They also want to avoid negative reviews.BattlEye is also supported in other games on Linux, including native versions, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to ensure its functionality.
Talk is cheap. It’s been “planned” for Tarkov since before I started using Linux.
Tarkov is in a different much more complex situation. It uses some Battleye addons that are custom made for the game that Battleye will not port to work on Linux.
If it was an issue on the user’s end then it’s possible 3rd parties could fix it (as Wine/Proton has for every game not designed for GNU+Linux). BattleState Games have decided they don’t want to host servers without BattlEye for us to play on and that we’re not entitled to host our own servers.
I did consider installing Windows on a machine just for Tarkov but install and using modern Windows looks like hell. I’d rather install Windows XP than Windows .
Some places do eventually listen. Crytek stealth dropped easy anticheat support for Hunt Showdown a few versions ago.
I am genuinely curious how anti-cheat works on an open source OS. I don’t know a whole lot about how it works to be honest, but is there no problem with cheaters being able to manipulate the entire stack down to the kernel level?
Like I’m aware cheaters can decompile code so closed source isn’t necessarily that much better. Did I just answer my own question or is there more to it?
I’ll do my best to explain:
Firstly, not all code executed on an open source OS needs to be open source. For example: Epic Anti-Cheat, which comes with a Linux-compatible mode, is fully closed source. So right off the bat we’re going to put to bed the notion that somehow the platform of choice makes it easier for bad actors to pull apart and examine anticheat software.
Secondly, yes, there is a problem with cheaters being able to hide from anticheats on Linux. This is because on Windows it’s relatively easy to run kernel-level code via drivers – this is why most anticheats require admin permission to install a monitoring driver before the game will run. The anticheat is effectively rootkitting your system in order to circumvent other rootkits that may be concealing epic cheatz.
On GNU/Linux, almost all device drivers come prepackaged in the Linux kernel, so there’s no direct equivalent to the Windows approach of allowing users to install third-party code into the most protected rings of the OS. It’s still possible through the use of kernel modules (see NVIDIA drivers), but as evidenced by how annoying it is to use NVIDIA devices on Linux, this is a huge PITA for both the developer & the user to deal with.
So that’s the rub. On Linux, anticheats just have to trust that the kernel isn’t lying. This has been a perpetual thorn in the side of developers like Google, who’d really really like it if they could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a given Android device is not rooted (see SafetyNet). Google’s solution to this has been to introduce hardware-backed attestation – basically a special hardware chip on the device that can prove that the kernel software has not been tainted in any way.
I’m sure you agree with this, just wanted to add:
It’s also true that the ease with which a program can interact with kernel level drivers in Windows opens up a whole host of potential exploits including but not limited to recording all internet traffic, all keystrokes, listing all files & programs, accessing memory of other programs and more. AAA client-side anticheats require some pretty incredible trust in the vendor to not be either evil or incompetent.
This is why client-side anti-cheat is a terrible idea. It gives you the illusion of control, but really it doesn’t prevent a motivated party from cheating, and it opens up everyone else to kernel-level vulnerabilities when the anti-cheat software inevitably has a bug.
Client side anti-cheat should merely discourage low effort attacks, and the real cheat detection should always be server side looking at patterns of behavior. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to reach for client side anti-cheat than build an effective server side anti-cheat.
This is a really good answer, thanks! I like to imagine what a fully open-source future would look like and I imagine server-side anti cheat is the solution.
I don’t think popular games will ever be fully open source, but our operating systems could be.
I have very little proprietary software on my system outside of games, and it’s mostly limited to a handful of firmware blobs (e.g. GPU and WiFi firmware, CPU microcode, etc), with the clear exception bring browser DRM for streaming services. Everything proprietary on my system is sandboxed in some way, so I’m reasonably protected from most of that nonsense, but it’s still there and probably always will be.
Having proprietary software isn’t the issue IMO, as long as I can sandbox it. I can’t sandbox kernel level anti-cheat, so I’m never going to install a game that requires it. That’s my line in the sand.
One thing that I hope becomes more common is open source game code + proprietary art, sound and narrative. Game devs, artists, writers, etc deserve to get paid for their work, and we deserve to know what’s running on our computers. The more game devs use open source engines, the closer we get.
Maybe it’s because I am an amateur dev and not just a user but I like the freedom with assess that are creative commons and am put off when an open source game uses (edit) proprietary assests. Don’t see why they can’t get paid the same way open source dev would.
NEXON…
Perhaps don’t rely upon client side to do all the heavy lifting and problem solved without having to install malware?
I’ve seen this argument pop up but I’m confused with technical details on how it would work. Wouldn’t the client still need to download the game? Modifying the game files is a vector for attack. If it’s fully online on their servers then it would be pretty slow wouldn’t it?
The client is nothing but a display. All it downloads is vid and all it up loads is control. The only actual issue is potential for lag. ag is solvable by designing with it in mind.
Think about things like stadia. If they are viable so is actually running the game on the server. This way all the activity is server side and everything coming from the client is validated.
The actual issue is that the game servers and networking would be more expensive. And that is the real reason they do it with DRM, it is cheaper for them. Your experience is not important to them.
The lag issue is really one of design and cheap server side infrastructure. A shooter would use a time stamp to allow position validation for when the shot was fired. Simply reduce the micro management and you’ve resolved most of it to start with.I still cannot see how this will work out well. It will be very slow and now people won’t be able to own their games or play on LAN.
It is only slow if the infrastructure is crap. And you are complaining about the current state and not what would happen. Very, very few games have been released over the past decade with LAN play and the no online required is only a bit more. You objections are very hollow.
I can play CSGO on LAN
And which company is currently about to release that for the first time? See this is about DRM on games and none of the companies are paying to put that on antiques. I can still roll my Mechwarrior Mercenaries 2 server as well, but that also isn’t relevant to this thread.
Is this finally the beginning of anti-cheat games coming to linux? I’d love official ports for stuff like League or Honkai Star Rail.
deleted by creator
The issue isn’t even that BattlEye doesn’t work under Linux, because it does. It’s that a lot of studios that use it, namely Bungie and Ubisoft, explicitly refuse to enable support for it. Somehow they allowed Division 2 to run, but even then it only appears to be the Steam version, because my Uplay copy does not have the necessary files in the bundle
