When League of Legends introduced kernel-level anti-cheat it instantly killed the non-windows community and bricked a decent amount of systems. Posts about it where removed by moderators. It's a scam.
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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Kernel Level Anti-Cheat is a security risk on Windows, plain and simple. It basically bypasses nearly anti-virus and gives game devs access to any and every part of the system. Bugs could lead to unfettered and persistent access for malware.
Additionally, it doesn't work out of the box on Linux in wine (wine isn't a windows kernel running on linux, so it most likely can't work).
This is why especially Chinese publishers love it. Why bother hacking someone when the user will just voluntarily install a backdoor past all their security?
I'm sure it's irrelevant for desktops. But Valve wants to push linux and publishers came up with the stupid excuse and disabled support by 1 mouse click. But now Valve has the steam deck with steamOS. So a platform can be provided for publishers. So yea its a good thing from valve telling publisher "fck ya for disabling Linux support"
As a Linux gamer, that uses Proton to play games, I'm sure glad they did.
Makes it easy to figure out if I should bother buying the game or not.
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Would not buy even when playing on Windows
Some games with this on the store page run natively on Linux. Not sure how it works, does the Linux version just not use the anticheat?
All the games I've played with anti-cheat software under Linux, exclusively run in userspace.
That's (of the reasons) why you can't consistently determine which ACS work: those that support Linux have to make the compromise of not running in kernel space (let alone as root), and sensibly let the developer choosing whether to allow such compromise.
Wait, so they don't need kernal-level access? Ridiculous.
Some anticheat works fine with Linux. I know whatever Hell Let Loose uses work fine with proton.
Some games with this on the store page run natively on Linux. Not sure how it works, does the Linux version just not use the anticheat?
They may be a native Linux-supported game.
Otherwise, I know Easy Anti-Cheat is available on Steam for Linux, you install it just like if it's its own game, then other games use it. I don't know about any other anti-cheat software.
You can always check out protondb.com for info on a specific game.
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@SeekPie I remember it's quite recent. Probably to get back at Rockstar (and other kernel level abusers) for blocking Linux and therefore Steam deck users.
If they wanted to do that, they would have added a filter to hide games with kernel level anti cheat from the store.