How anti-cheat runs on Proton

Wine runs Windows programs on Linux by translating Windows system calls. Proton is Valve's distribution of Wine, bundled with extras such as DXVK for graphics, and is what Steam uses to run Windows games on Linux and the Steam Deck.

In 2021 the vendors behind Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye made Linux runtimes available that work with Proton. These are separate modules designed for Linux and are not the Windows driver running under emulation.

Crucially, the developer has to enable Linux support for each game. When they do, Steam and Proton download the runtime automatically, and players need no extra setup. When they do not, the game's anti-cheat refuses to start under Proton and the game cannot be played online.

The technology is the same across many games, but the decision belongs to each publisher. A game can use Easy Anti-Cheat and work perfectly, while another using the same vendor is blocked because its publisher never enabled Linux or later switched support off.

That is why this site tracks games and vendors separately. Vendor pages describe what is technically possible, and game pages record what a publisher has actually decided.

Community guides sometimes suggest tricks to make an anti-cheat load when the developer has not enabled Linux support. This is a bad idea for online games, because the anti-cheat may treat the unsupported environment as tampering and ban the account.