Exciting Times for the Steam Deck and Linux Gaming Ahead
On Wednesday, January 26, Valve has announced (thumbnail origin) that the first batch of the Steam Deck will finally ship on February 28. A few months ago, Valve delayed the launch of the handheld from its original December release window due to supply chain issues plus further polishing of SteamOS 3.0.
In my previous Linux gaming articles, I have consistently expressed enthusiasm for how the Steam Deck may affect the Linux gaming sphere. The device looks very comfortable to hold and offers a wide variety of control options from the touchpads to the rear paddles. The RDNA2 cores are far more powerful than the Vega cores of AMD's older APUs. Valve even released a video showing off how easily repairable the Steam Deck is in case, for instance, your left analog has a bad case of stick drift.
But the official release date is not the only exciting news that has happened. In fact, over the past few weeks, the Steam Deck and Linux gaming have been receiving a lot of significant developments.
Valve Makes Anti-Cheat Support Even Easier
A few weeks ago, a developer for Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (post #85) explained why the game does not have EAC support for WINE/Proton. Apparently, there are two versions for EAC: the original version and the one that uses Epic Online Services. When Valve first announced EAC support for Linux, it only applied to the version that utilized EOS. However, for Warhammer: Vermintide 2, it is using the original version. For the developers to support WINE/Proton, they would need to rewrite the code to the EOS version which is a huge undertaking.
It looked like there was yet another major hurdle for Linux gaming to overcome, but on January 21, Valve announced an update where it further simplified the process of bringing Easy Anti-Cheat support to Linux. The company stated that "Steam Deck [and by extension, Linux] support to your existing EAC games is now a simple process, and doesn't require updating game binaries, SDK versions, or integration of EOS".
This is huge news as the two biggest anti-cheat services are now accounted for and the process for supporting either EAC or BattlEye is as simple as it can possible be. Of course, this is contingent on developers to give enough of a damn to enable support for WINE/Proton, but if the Steam Deck sells well enough, they will be incentivized to do so.
Lutris Adds Support to More Services
For those unfamiliar, Lutris is a free and open-source game manager that allows you to play games on Linux, including native Linux and Windows games. It even allows you to emulate games from a large variety of legacy platforms like PlayStations 1 to 3, the Gamecube, the PSP, the 3DS, or even the still-selling Switch.
However, the PC gaming market is fragmented into multiple services. Other than Steam, there are the Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, EA Origin, GOG, and Humble Bundle. While Lutris is a very versatile tool, it does not support all PC gaming services.
That said, it is getting closer to realizing that goal. Just this week, lead developer Mathieu Comandon made not only one, but two announcements. On January 23, he confirmed that EA Origin integration on Lutris is available in the development branch of Lutris. Just a mere two days later, he announced that Ubisoft Connect is now integrated into Lutris (development branch).
This is rather significant as it further simplifies the Linux gaming experience. If you own games across multiple services, then Lutris serves as a very convenient "one stop shop" as opposed to needing to juggle between launchers.
Closing Thoughts
We are still a month away until the Steam Deck officially ships. That said, it is hard to not be excited for the handheld's potential. Heck, it does not just stop at anti-cheat support and Lutris. Valve has also sponsored more work on the AMD Linux drivers and is working on bringing variable rate shading (VRS) to the Deck for not just better performance, but also power savings.
I'm also highly curious of the SteamOS 3.0 desktop experience and when Valve will allow users to install it on any device. The selling point of the Steam Deck (provided that it lives up to the hype) is its console-like plug-and-play simplicity. You download a game, you press play, and the game boots without any sort of tinkering. If SteamOS can provide a similar experience on a laptop or a desktop, then it may become the go-to Linux distro for PC gaming.
