Grand Theft Auto V was one of the top 10 most played games on Valve's Steam Deck handheld last week. It's been in the top 20 for at least two years. But as of today, Valve is listing the game as “unsupported” – because developer Rockstar mysteriously broke compatibility with Valve's handheld for its online modes.
As you can see in the picture above, this is the latest battle for Linux Anti-Cheat: as the developers of Fortnite And RobloxRockstar has decided not to support the Steam Deck with its new anti-cheat software for GTA Online — a game that, by all accounts, was desperately struggling with cheaters. (Steam Deck aside, better cheat protection would probably have been a good move.)
But unlike Fortnite and Roblox, Rockstar is taking away the multiplayer portion of the game from people instead of not bringing it to Steam Deck in the first place. They are also blaming Valve for the issue, claiming that “Steam Deck does not support BattlEye for GTA Online” and referring all further questions to Valve.
And it doesn't answer a key question: Why wasn't the supposed switch that makes BattlEye Anti-Cheat work on the Steam Deck flipped?
Because it works, as far as I know. Valve enabled BattlEye for the Steam Deck years ago, and a number of games using the anti-cheat software have successfully made the jump. Valve has said that getting a game running with BattlEye on the Steam Deck is literally as easy as sending an email. But Rockstar hasn't responded when I asked about it. I've also pinged Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais to see if anything has changed in the anti-cheat scene since then, but haven't heard back yet.
I've heard repeated claims that letting Linux users mess with anti-cheat protection will encourage them to find ways to mitigate it, but Epic's Tim Sweeney suggested last year that this might be more of a business case.
On the positive side, GTA-VSingle player mode should still work. “You can play GTAV story mode, but not GTA Online,” Rockstar's FAQ states.