Epic Games is working to make Fortnite playable on Linux, a platform the battle royale title has never supported. The company has begun releasing a preview of its Epic Games Launcher for Linux, and while Fortnite is not yet available through it, Epic has said it intends to change that. The effort centers on rebuilding the company's anti-cheat technology so it can run on the open-source operating system.
Cheating concerns have kept Fortnite off Linux. Epic's Easy Anti-Cheat service already supports Linux, but Fortnite does not. In February 2022, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said the company lacked confidence that it could fight cheating at scale across the wide variety of kernel configurations found on Linux systems. Epic now says it is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat for Linux under the name EAC Linux v2.
In a blog post, Epic said it is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat and working with distribution maintainers on security requirements in order to bring Fortnite to Linux. The company said that once the software works with a critical mass of distribution maintainers, it will bring Fortnite to Linux through the Epic Games Launcher. Epic also said it will make the improvements available to other developers so they can bring their games to Linux players.
Epic plans to test EAC Linux v2 in Fortnite first, according to a separate post about the anti-cheat update. Rick Deist, an engineering director at Epic, told The Verge in a briefing that the company does not have a timeline for when a Fortnite Linux version might arrive. That leaves the release window for US players and others unanswered for now.
Epic is also investigating compatibility with Valve's Linux-based SteamOS, Deist said. The company does not plan to bring Fortnite to Valve's Steam store, according to Martin Keely, vice president and general manager of the Epic Games Store. Epic said the Steam Deck does not support the features required for its EAC v2 solution, but that it is actively talking with Valve and hopes to support the device in the future.
More software news from TechManNews.
