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Ubisoft's FOR HONOR will block SteamOS / Linux players starting September 10

115 points by haunter 1mo ago

haunter 1mo ago
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/anticheat/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/anticheat/
vsviridov 1mo ago
When you though Ubisoft can't get any worse...
- AlexandrB 1mo ago
  I've gotten very comfortable not owning Ubisoft games[1]. [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-to-get-comfortable-not-owning-their-games-for-subscriptions-to-take-off https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-t...
  - everdrive 1mo ago
    "Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games" Nothing makes more comfortable than not playing Ubisoft games.
  - Hamuko 1mo ago
    Apparently so have other gamers considering that Ubisoft's stock price has fallen over 90% in the last five years.
  - xeonmc 1mo ago
    Actually, the intent was to preserve the sense of pride and accomplishment by motivating players to play through their purchases instead of hoarding them indefinitely. You think you want a permanent game library, but you don't. Do you guys not have free time? It shouldn't be that hard to finish a game well within its service life anyways.
    - barnabee 1mo ago
      What? I’ve recently re-played games I enjoyed in the 90s. I listen to my dad’s old vinyl records. Why the hell should my game purchases evaporate after some arbitrary and unpredictable amount of time?
      - xeonmc 1mo ago
        ...I guess this is where one says, "woosh"?
- deltoidmaximus 1mo ago
  I bought Farcry 3 Blood Dragon some years ago. I seem to recall I had to install some kind of mod otherwise the game would hang on startup or had long delays because the installed version tried to communicate with some long dead Ubisoft gaming service that they'd shut down the servers for years ago. Funny they were still willing to collect the money for the game that they no longer supported.
jorvi 1mo ago
This stuff should only be legal if companies are forced to return you the full purchase price of the game.
- thrownawaysz 1mo ago
  But they are not selling the game for Linux. Only for Windows. It's another story that it works because of Proton but technically they don't support the platform at all. https://store.steampowered.com/app/304390/FOR_HONOR/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/304390/FOR_HONOR/ https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/for-honor/article/system-requirements-for-for-honor/000063197 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/for-honor/article/system-...
  - tempfile 1mo ago
    So they should have to return the money you paid, to account for their mistake in selling you the game.
    - john_strinlai 1mo ago
      >account for their mistake in selling you the game. i hate ubisoft as much as the next person, but if they listed the game as only supporting windows when it launched, and someone bought it for linux despite it not being supported, ubisoft did not make a "mistake" in selling the game to them. the buyer made a decision to purchase the game for an unsupported system. (the rule i follow, which hasn't gone wrong yet, is to avoid all ubisoft games like the plague) edit: am i missing something here? those disagreeing, please let me know why you believe you deserve a refund in this situation, knowing that ubisoft only advertised support for windows.
      - freedomben 1mo ago
        > edit: am i missing something here? those disagreeing, please let me know why you believe you deserve a refund in this situation, knowing that ubisoft only advertised support for windows. You're probably downvoted by people's emotions and feelings because they don't want to see any (even and especially if valid) defense of Ubisoft here. It's wrong and shouldn't happen, but it very much does. I'm linux-only for 15+ years now and only buy games that run on Linux. I am filled with righteous rage when companies do what they are doing. But you're not wrong, this one is on the buyer not the seller, though everyone should remember this move and avoid buying Ubisoft games in the future because they have proven outwardly hostile. A criticism I do give them (the seller) though, if you're going to block linux then it should be well-stated in the game description so people don't miss it. Not doing this is dishonest marketing IMHO.
thrownawaysz 1mo ago
Valve can't even make their own anti cheat system work (VAC) on Windows let alone on Linux so not surprised that 3rd party publishers with 3rd party anti cheat system is giving up. I mean they technically work as a software but they don't fullfil their purpose, to block cheaters.
- nemomarx 1mo ago
  Doesn't easy anti cheat work on Linux / proton?
  - thrownawaysz 1mo ago
    This is what I meant by my last sentence. Easy Anti cheat works as a software but doesn't work as an anti cheat system.
    - Insanity 1mo ago
      Yeah I guess the confusion is the overloaded term "work". It _runs_ on Linux, but it's not effective on any system.
- netsharc 1mo ago
  I suppose the only good solution is like those "game streaming services": move all the logic to the server and use the client only as a rendering device. Even sending metadata so the client can use local sprites to render the enemy is hackable, if the end-user knows the coordinates where to render the enemy, it can immediately tell the server that "user aimed at $COORDS and pulled the trigger"...
  - aruametello 1mo ago
    i find it quite amusing that some people forget that opensource software is a double edge sword in these cases. > "why can we run windows games the way we want and often better than windows?" its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself. > "why cant we stop people tampering with their own systems to stop cheating?" its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself. but my addendum is: > I suppose the only good solution is like those "game streaming services": move all the logic to the server and use the client only as a rendering device. we are in the "dark ages" of AI/computer vision usage and this wouldn’t stop aimbots that are screen readers. Overall the proposal is the "lesser evil" but still quite fucking evil.
foxyv 1mo ago
[flagged]
- Hamuko 1mo ago
  What does CoD have to do with Ubisoft?
- TiredOfLife 1mo ago
  What does Ubisoft have to do with CoD MW2?
  - foxyv 1mo ago
    Woops, wrong bad gaming company. Derp.
- fetus8 1mo ago
  CoD games come from Activision…
- cheschire 1mo ago
  Ubisoft didn’t make either iteration of MW2. That was activision. But a year after that bullshit, then Ubisoft started pushing the always-online requirement for even single player games like assassins creed. Maybe you were thinking of that?
  - foxyv 1mo ago
    Naw, I just haven't played either company's games for so long my brain mixed up the two. Sorry
Insanity 1mo ago
I recently moved to Linux for gaming. Last time I tried was around 2008 and I guess I was reluctant to move gaming to Linux because that experience was far from smooth. Honestly, it's like magic that I can run "The Finals" on highest settings without any hiccup. It literally 'just works'. Happy that I could completely get rid of Windows (it was only there for gaming). It's still hard to believe, given back in 2008 when playing CS I had framerate bugs, text would not render properly (even after messing around with it for some days), and mouse input was.. not ideal. It's come a long way since the days of WINE. FWIW, I moved from Debian to "Nobara Linux" for this. Mostly because I was in the mood for some distro hopping as well. Highly recommend the experience. (https://nobaraproject.org/ https://nobaraproject.org/). It was a smooth experience from the start, no issues installing it, drivers worked out-of-the-box, audio settings all worked fine, and Steam was pre-installed as well. Super cool. Would not move back to Windows gaming for Ubisoft games lol.
- stackghost 1mo ago
  Which distro are you using? I'm currently on bazzite and it's merely an okay experience.
  - Insanity 1mo ago
    Nobara Linux, which is based on Fedora. I used the "Gnome" installer rather than "official" because I still want a regular desktop experience. I've been on Linux for development since 2008 as well so I wanted an "all in one" OS this time rather than dual-boot Linux/Windows. I'm running this on AMD CPU & GPU (because AMD historically was always better supported than Nvidia). I've not run into any issues the past weeks. Discord and the game both run smoothly. Honestly hard to believe given how rough it was in the past. That said, I don't play a wide variety of games, I tend to stick with a single game for years. So I'm happy just running "The Finals" and haven't tried other games lol. What kind of issues are you running into with Bazzite?
    - stackghost 1mo ago
      >What kind of issues are you running into with Bazzite? It's just a mess. There are three different ways to get software, so despite being a seasoned Linux user of 20+ years I'm never really sure if I'm installing something via the happy path or not. I wanted to install Battle.net, for example, and the best/only way I could get it to work is by following some random forum post to run battle.net as a steam app, so if I want to play StarCraft 2 I need to launch Steam, launch bnet from within steam, then finally run sc from that. Networking is kinda flaky, too. Sometimes games (incidentally, StarCraft, but also other battlenet games like HOTS) will simply refuse to connect to the master servers. Controllers randomly don't work, etc. I could go on. None of these are deal breakers in and of themselves, but I'm continually reminded why The Year of the Linux Desktop isn't happening. It's just generally janky.
unpopularopp 1mo ago
That's the caveat of Proton. Running games on unsupported platforms they are not meant for. And if it doesn't work who's fault that? Valve? The dev? No one because it's open source so fix your own? Honestly Valve should have a stricter warning if a game is Windows only
- bogwog 1mo ago
  The situation here isn't that the game doesn't work. It does work, it's just the Ubisoft isn't happy with the quality of Easy Anti Cheat's (their third party anti cheat provider) Linux offering.
- john_strinlai 1mo ago
  >Honestly Valve should have a stricter warning if a game is Windows only the "system requirements" section is right there, with "OS" being the first line. i dont agree that this is a valve thing.
- clownpenis_fart 1mo ago
  [dead]
- Valodim 1mo ago
  At Valve's scale, it becomes the publisher's problem. Which is, in this particular case, a good thing imo. I certainly don't mind the pressure on publishers to ensure basic compatibility with Linux
iririririr 1mo ago
will never understand people who opt for a rootkit just for a 0,1% chance of a match without cheaters. you're all the worse.
- LollipopYakuza 1mo ago
  [disclaimer: I am not a competitive player nor will I ever install such a low level anticheat] I think it's already more than 0,1% in most popular games online, but I am assuming it would be just unplayable without anticheat.
  - iririririr 1mo ago
    ok, 10%. but you're trading full root/admin access to game code on your pc... is it really really worth? People are so brain washed that it is essential that here we are, sad companies won't take the option you giving them root access on linux too! a much better solution would be absolutely no root kit, but players picking "never play with this player gain". done. boardgame.com does this and it is very much perfect and flawless.
    - Hikikomori 1mo ago
      Not much difference when a user space program alredy can read all your files and memory of processes of your user. People just read big bad kernel or rootkit without considering what's alredy possible.
    - LollipopYakuza 1mo ago
      I understand the logic, but I think most people don't realize the implication or don't care.
- AndriyKunitsyn 1mo ago
  The Verdana font that your message is written with - how can you be sure that its TrueType bytecode hasn't escaped the sandbox and snuck into your ring0? You either put some trust into the systems made by other people, or you don't touch computers at all.
mysteria 1mo ago
Wouldn't it be possible to have two tiers of servers here? Like have one that's accessible to everyone with a possibly increased risk of cheating and one restricted to Windows users. I remember in the old days some games had optional anticheat and there were servers with and without it.
- john_strinlai 1mo ago
  of course that would be possible, but i can't see ubisoft opting into that. it'd be an additional expense for a very small % of the player base of a 9 year old game.
ChrisArchitect 1mo ago
Source: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/4WKJhG6v6C9sbCOZkFZ6wG/ranked-faq https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/4W...
Ithildin 1mo ago
Going forward, I simply will not be purchasing any game that does not work on Linux. I realize that I'll be missing out on some titles, but Windows simply isn't worth the headache. CachyOS has been working great for me. Proton has been amazing. I have had zero problems with the games I typically play -- some of which are multiplayer. Luckily, I have not run into anti-cheat issues yet.
- mihaelm 1mo ago
  I'm pulling for Microsoft to create an XboxOS for PC you can just freely install on any machine, as that's about the only thing I care about regarding Windows. Then I could see myself dualbooting that when I want to play my Xbox collection. And it'd be nice to build a beefy machine to max them out on, once the PC component prices settle a bit. They're playing with that with the Xbox Full Screen Experience on ROG Xbox Ally, but it's still running Windows 11 underneath. I just want the Xbox.
  - summermusic 1mo ago
    We should invest in solutions outside of Microsoft for games. Even if Microsoft comes out with XboxOS, and even if somehow it isn't terrible, it will eventually be terrible and will enable companies to continue to do anti-consumer B.S. like what Ubisoft is doing here.
  - caconym_ 1mo ago
    Given how dogshit Windows 11 is, and how dogshit the Xbox-branded apps have consistently been in the last 10 years or so (it's genuinely impressive how bad they are), it's hard to see why a new Microsoft thing wouldn't have all the same problems. They just don't make software to serve the user anymore.
    - mihaelm 1mo ago
      I like the software side on my Series X, so if they can bring that over to PC as an OS, that'd be great. I agree the Xbox on PC experience hasn't been stellar so far and I hope they ditch that app with the next generation, for the sake of current userbase. It was serviceable at best in my Windows 10 days. For anything not gaming related, I have Linux or MacOS.
trashb 1mo ago
This is funny since they are literally using "Easy Anti Cheat" and that fully supports Linux. From what I understand Easy Anti Cheat, makes it very easy for developers to run on Linux, basically it is a compile setting to support it. It is one of the anti-cheat providers that had decent Linux support since the beginning. Back before Proton and when it was new developers often denied requests for turning on Linux support, however this is the first time I head a developer actively turning it off. I think it speaks volumes of their intent that the game is to be "fully removed from the Linux platform", and they won't offer the single player experience or non competitive experience for Linux based customers. On top of that it seems to me they tried sneaking this statement in an announcement titled "Ranked FAQ". This shows they have no respect for their customers. https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/epic-online-services/platform-support https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/epic-online-services/platform...
- tapoxi 1mo ago
  EAC supports Linux, but by doing so you're disabling a number of security features since you're making the anti-cheat run entirely in userspace. Remember these games aren't Linux native either, so it allows Windows-using cheaters to lie to the process that they're on Linux and to only use userspace protection. The cheat then runs in kernel space and remains invisible. The only realistic way to solve this on Linux is enforcing secure boot w/trusted kernels and then running the anti-cheat in sandboxed eBPF kernel space. Embark is looking at this approach.
  - altairprime 1mo ago
    > The only realistic way to solve this on Linux is enforcing secure boot w/trusted kernels and then running the anti-cheat in sandboxed eBPF kernel space. Embark is looking at this approach. Assuming secure boot, there’s another realistic way, which is to use vendor-signed readonly Linux OS images — not just kernels — that disallow process memory access to root, come with signed kernel drivers, and offer secure attestation support chained to secure boot. Steam Linux and Bazzite could both implement this easily; the former has a fixed hardware target list and the latter is already an ‘all in one’ solution. Since Linux users are generally competent at dual-booting, one would simply dual-boot into the sealed image to play PvP multiplayer games, no eBPF development or maintenance of anti-cheat required. Embark is within their rights to evaluate the workload of supporting DIY unsigned Linux instances through eBPF but doing so would create a viable competitor to an attestation-derived Valve Anti-Cheat for Steam Linux, and so likely inspire the giant in the room to step up and obsolete it.
bakies 1mo ago
I stopped buying Ubisoft games a long time ago for several other reasons
- rf15 1mo ago
  This article just made me think "wait, people still buy Ubisoft after everything they pulled in the past 15+ years?"
surcap526 1mo ago
[dead]
zokier 1mo ago
I expect competitive multiplayer to shift towards dedicated locked down gaming distros (such as steamos) that will offer fully signed hardware backed (tpm) remote attestable system for anti-cheats. Which will make casually playing such games pretty awkward.
scronkfinkle 1mo ago
There's a couple different ways to look at this. From a charitable point of view to ubisoft, they do not advertise support for Linux. Instead they openly state it's a window's only game. So when a third party (i.e. Valve) makes shim that grants linux functionality, it's not really on Ubisoft to maintain that. However, from a consumer perspective, this is incredibly frustrating. The average person does not think of "linux vs. windows". They just bought the steam deck and when they bought For Honor it was sold on that "platform". Again, it's hard to blame Ubisoft for this conundrum since they were never necessarily trying to be steam deck compliant to begin with, but it definitely feels wrong to take the game away from a player in this perspective. All that being said, historically across many games such as Rust, many are quick to blame linux for cheating, but pragmatically banning linux has yet to measurably reduce the amount of cheating that players report experiencing, so I don't agree with the decision at all. It's a footgun disguised as a band aid
- yjftsjthsd-h 1mo ago
  > So when a third party (i.e. Valve) makes shim that grants linux functionality, it's not really on Ubisoft to maintain that. I agree that it's not on them to maintain it, but that's different from intentionally breaking it.
dash2 1mo ago
I’d be interested in hearing why they can’t get decent anti-cheat on Linux. Are there technical barriers?
- rocqua 1mo ago
  It’s extra hard on Linux because the amount of ways you can reconfigure a linux machine to work around boot- or root-kits, the ways you can modify a running process, and hide what is happening from an existing process. Really, linux is meant to give you control over the software that runs in your computer. Anti-cheat is inherently about limiting what you can run on your computer. Windows is much more aimed at allowing you opt in to hard limitations.
egypturnash 1mo ago
I wonder how Valve will decide to handle the incoming wave of refund requests from well outside the normal 2h playtime window. Looking at the Steam page for this game, there's a "year 10 roadmap" post.
- bragr 1mo ago
  It is advertised as a Windows only game so I doubt they'll honor them, but we'll see.
  - hananova 1mo ago
    Valve has in the past given refunds for something that was changed to deliberately no longer work on certain systems. Given that this involves their own hardware devices in this case they're likely to do so here.
einrealist 1mo ago
Client-side anti-cheat is a band-aid that will always punish legit players and merely hinder cheaters. 'The client cannot be trusted' applies to simple HTTP exchanges as well as to game state. Of course, if the server has to track and validate everything, it would cost more to operate game servers....
- rf15 1mo ago
  This is a solved problem with dedicated servers and a proper community. They're just trying to sell you One Faceless Corp Server because it makes them more money, even though it is less efficient because of scaling problems and also you have less control. This is "It works better in the app" applied to gaming services.
drcongo 1mo ago
These are the same dicks that want my kids to create dedicated Ubisoft accounts just to be able to use the PS5 games they've paid for. Never buying anything from these scammers again.
bbor 1mo ago
The fact that the top comment is joking about how this juggernaut of a game is some unknown nobody is part of the problem
- yndoendo 1mo ago
  After not supporting Ubsoft for years, I have no clue how popular or even which games they produce. This was my first time ever hearing about this game. Steams allows for blocking content from publishers and studios. Ditched them once they required you to use their own launcher. Years before completely replacing Windows with Linux. Ubisoft is dead to me so why should I retain useless knowledge?
- rf15 1mo ago
  I watch gaming-related news daily for fun and I don't remember this game at all. I remember other big publisher competitive online games fine, so I feel this one is particularly insignificant.
sergiotapia 1mo ago
If your game doesn't work on Linux I just won't buy it. I have a steam machine and a gaming pc, your game needs to work on Linux. This isn't 2008 anymore dude...
cloudie78 1mo ago
Vote with your wallet on this one. It’s time gaming companies start supporting Linux.
buzer 1mo ago
Someone in EU should try to make a complaint to the local authority who is enforcing ePrivacy Directive regarding anti cheats in general. Despite what people think ePD isn't limited to cookies and rather also applies all data read or stored in "terminal equipment" via use of electronic communications networks. I would say anti cheat should usually qualify. If they want to do it without consent then they need to show that it's strictly necessary for the service user specifically requested (and that applies for each piece of data written/read, including the OS information). There's good argument that anti cheat itself would need to be consent based. If you don't accept then you simply don't get placed in games with users who have it enabled.
- altairprime 1mo ago
  For anyone pursuing this, consider that the EU age verification apps are the EU’s first foray into digital anti-cheat systems at population scale. If you take the time to research how those are being designed and implemented and incorporate awareness of their work into your complaint about anti-cheats in gaming, your missive will be a lot more likely to strike the target and be taken seriously.
  - buzer 1mo ago
    The age verification is it's own can of worms. I'm currently waiting for my native country (but not the one where I reside) to actually publish their wallet implementation. I'm planning to make complaint around it because the whole thing almost certainly breaches ePD. ePD's exceptions are actually for "information society service" rather than just any service. The ISS itself has it's own sets of requirements, but the important one here is that "normally provided for remuneration". Service provided by government as part of their public duty almost never fulfills that requirement. So in order to store or read data they would need consent. But consent requirements come from GDPR and it's unlikely that this type of consent would be "freely given" given the impact of refusal.
    - altairprime 1mo ago
      From a technical standpoint, there’s no functional difference: without secure boot and OS attestation, age verification is as ineffective as EAC on Linux, because you can simply `insmod GameGenie.ko code=A456-GH4C` to have your mobile device simulator kernel patch success into any challenge. At the surface level they’re different — one is PvP, the other is PvG, one uses webcams for Twitch, the other uses webcams for facial recognition — but the same set of kernel defenses enable both.
Telaneo 1mo ago
Aren't there EU laws on modifying software for interoperability and whatnot being legal? This and right-to-repair should block any opportunity for companies to intentionally prevent users from using their software the way they want. I'm sure the laws aren't written to actually to ensure that, but they should be.
senectus1 1mo ago
i predict this will get reversed. money speaks and valve is the carrot leading the money donkey

115 points by haunter 1mo ago

haunter 1mo ago

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/anticheat/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/anticheat/

vsviridov 1mo ago

When you though Ubisoft can't get any worse...

AlexandrB 1mo ago
I've gotten very comfortable not owning Ubisoft games[1]. [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-to-get-comfortable-not-owning-their-games-for-subscriptions-to-take-off https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-t...
- everdrive 1mo ago
  "Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games" Nothing makes more comfortable than not playing Ubisoft games.
- Hamuko 1mo ago
  Apparently so have other gamers considering that Ubisoft's stock price has fallen over 90% in the last five years.
- xeonmc 1mo ago
  Actually, the intent was to preserve the sense of pride and accomplishment by motivating players to play through their purchases instead of hoarding them indefinitely. You think you want a permanent game library, but you don't. Do you guys not have free time? It shouldn't be that hard to finish a game well within its service life anyways.
  - barnabee 1mo ago
    What? I’ve recently re-played games I enjoyed in the 90s. I listen to my dad’s old vinyl records. Why the hell should my game purchases evaporate after some arbitrary and unpredictable amount of time?
    - xeonmc 1mo ago
      ...I guess this is where one says, "woosh"?
deltoidmaximus 1mo ago
I bought Farcry 3 Blood Dragon some years ago. I seem to recall I had to install some kind of mod otherwise the game would hang on startup or had long delays because the installed version tried to communicate with some long dead Ubisoft gaming service that they'd shut down the servers for years ago. Funny they were still willing to collect the money for the game that they no longer supported.

jorvi 1mo ago

This stuff should only be legal if companies are forced to return you the full purchase price of the game.

thrownawaysz 1mo ago
But they are not selling the game for Linux. Only for Windows. It's another story that it works because of Proton but technically they don't support the platform at all. https://store.steampowered.com/app/304390/FOR_HONOR/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/304390/FOR_HONOR/ https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/for-honor/article/system-requirements-for-for-honor/000063197 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/for-honor/article/system-...
- tempfile 1mo ago
  So they should have to return the money you paid, to account for their mistake in selling you the game.
  - john_strinlai 1mo ago
    >account for their mistake in selling you the game. i hate ubisoft as much as the next person, but if they listed the game as only supporting windows when it launched, and someone bought it for linux despite it not being supported, ubisoft did not make a "mistake" in selling the game to them. the buyer made a decision to purchase the game for an unsupported system. (the rule i follow, which hasn't gone wrong yet, is to avoid all ubisoft games like the plague) edit: am i missing something here? those disagreeing, please let me know why you believe you deserve a refund in this situation, knowing that ubisoft only advertised support for windows.
    - freedomben 1mo ago
      > edit: am i missing something here? those disagreeing, please let me know why you believe you deserve a refund in this situation, knowing that ubisoft only advertised support for windows. You're probably downvoted by people's emotions and feelings because they don't want to see any (even and especially if valid) defense of Ubisoft here. It's wrong and shouldn't happen, but it very much does. I'm linux-only for 15+ years now and only buy games that run on Linux. I am filled with righteous rage when companies do what they are doing. But you're not wrong, this one is on the buyer not the seller, though everyone should remember this move and avoid buying Ubisoft games in the future because they have proven outwardly hostile. A criticism I do give them (the seller) though, if you're going to block linux then it should be well-stated in the game description so people don't miss it. Not doing this is dishonest marketing IMHO.

thrownawaysz 1mo ago

Valve can't even make their own anti cheat system work (VAC) on Windows let alone on Linux so not surprised that 3rd party publishers with 3rd party anti cheat system is giving up. I mean they technically work as a software but they don't fullfil their purpose, to block cheaters.

nemomarx 1mo ago
Doesn't easy anti cheat work on Linux / proton?
- thrownawaysz 1mo ago
  This is what I meant by my last sentence. Easy Anti cheat works as a software but doesn't work as an anti cheat system.
  - Insanity 1mo ago
    Yeah I guess the confusion is the overloaded term "work". It _runs_ on Linux, but it's not effective on any system.
netsharc 1mo ago
I suppose the only good solution is like those "game streaming services": move all the logic to the server and use the client only as a rendering device. Even sending metadata so the client can use local sprites to render the enemy is hackable, if the end-user knows the coordinates where to render the enemy, it can immediately tell the server that "user aimed at $COORDS and pulled the trigger"...
- aruametello 1mo ago
  i find it quite amusing that some people forget that opensource software is a double edge sword in these cases. > "why can we run windows games the way we want and often better than windows?" its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself. > "why cant we stop people tampering with their own systems to stop cheating?" its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself. but my addendum is: > I suppose the only good solution is like those "game streaming services": move all the logic to the server and use the client only as a rendering device. we are in the "dark ages" of AI/computer vision usage and this wouldn’t stop aimbots that are screen readers. Overall the proposal is the "lesser evil" but still quite fucking evil.

foxyv 1mo ago

[flagged]

Hamuko 1mo ago
What does CoD have to do with Ubisoft?
TiredOfLife 1mo ago
What does Ubisoft have to do with CoD MW2?
- foxyv 1mo ago
  Woops, wrong bad gaming company. Derp.
fetus8 1mo ago
CoD games come from Activision…
cheschire 1mo ago
Ubisoft didn’t make either iteration of MW2. That was activision. But a year after that bullshit, then Ubisoft started pushing the always-online requirement for even single player games like assassins creed. Maybe you were thinking of that?
- foxyv 1mo ago
  Naw, I just haven't played either company's games for so long my brain mixed up the two. Sorry

Insanity 1mo ago

I recently moved to Linux for gaming. Last time I tried was around 2008 and I guess I was reluctant to move gaming to Linux because that experience was far from smooth. Honestly, it's like magic that I can run "The Finals" on highest settings without any hiccup. It literally 'just works'. Happy that I could completely get rid of Windows (it was only there for gaming). It's still hard to believe, given back in 2008 when playing CS I had framerate bugs, text would not render properly (even after messing around with it for some days), and mouse input was.. not ideal. It's come a long way since the days of WINE. FWIW, I moved from Debian to "Nobara Linux" for this. Mostly because I was in the mood for some distro hopping as well. Highly recommend the experience. (https://nobaraproject.org/ https://nobaraproject.org/). It was a smooth experience from the start, no issues installing it, drivers worked out-of-the-box, audio settings all worked fine, and Steam was pre-installed as well. Super cool. Would not move back to Windows gaming for Ubisoft games lol.

stackghost 1mo ago
Which distro are you using? I'm currently on bazzite and it's merely an okay experience.
- Insanity 1mo ago
  Nobara Linux, which is based on Fedora. I used the "Gnome" installer rather than "official" because I still want a regular desktop experience. I've been on Linux for development since 2008 as well so I wanted an "all in one" OS this time rather than dual-boot Linux/Windows. I'm running this on AMD CPU & GPU (because AMD historically was always better supported than Nvidia). I've not run into any issues the past weeks. Discord and the game both run smoothly. Honestly hard to believe given how rough it was in the past. That said, I don't play a wide variety of games, I tend to stick with a single game for years. So I'm happy just running "The Finals" and haven't tried other games lol. What kind of issues are you running into with Bazzite?
  - stackghost 1mo ago
    >What kind of issues are you running into with Bazzite? It's just a mess. There are three different ways to get software, so despite being a seasoned Linux user of 20+ years I'm never really sure if I'm installing something via the happy path or not. I wanted to install Battle.net, for example, and the best/only way I could get it to work is by following some random forum post to run battle.net as a steam app, so if I want to play StarCraft 2 I need to launch Steam, launch bnet from within steam, then finally run sc from that. Networking is kinda flaky, too. Sometimes games (incidentally, StarCraft, but also other battlenet games like HOTS) will simply refuse to connect to the master servers. Controllers randomly don't work, etc. I could go on. None of these are deal breakers in and of themselves, but I'm continually reminded why The Year of the Linux Desktop isn't happening. It's just generally janky.

unpopularopp 1mo ago

That's the caveat of Proton. Running games on unsupported platforms they are not meant for. And if it doesn't work who's fault that? Valve? The dev? No one because it's open source so fix your own? Honestly Valve should have a stricter warning if a game is Windows only

bogwog 1mo ago
The situation here isn't that the game doesn't work. It does work, it's just the Ubisoft isn't happy with the quality of Easy Anti Cheat's (their third party anti cheat provider) Linux offering.
john_strinlai 1mo ago
>Honestly Valve should have a stricter warning if a game is Windows only the "system requirements" section is right there, with "OS" being the first line. i dont agree that this is a valve thing.
clownpenis_fart 1mo ago
[dead]
Valodim 1mo ago
At Valve's scale, it becomes the publisher's problem. Which is, in this particular case, a good thing imo. I certainly don't mind the pressure on publishers to ensure basic compatibility with Linux

iririririr 1mo ago

will never understand people who opt for a rootkit just for a 0,1% chance of a match without cheaters. you're all the worse.

LollipopYakuza 1mo ago
[disclaimer: I am not a competitive player nor will I ever install such a low level anticheat] I think it's already more than 0,1% in most popular games online, but I am assuming it would be just unplayable without anticheat.
- iririririr 1mo ago
  ok, 10%. but you're trading full root/admin access to game code on your pc... is it really really worth? People are so brain washed that it is essential that here we are, sad companies won't take the option you giving them root access on linux too! a much better solution would be absolutely no root kit, but players picking "never play with this player gain". done. boardgame.com does this and it is very much perfect and flawless.
  - Hikikomori 1mo ago
    Not much difference when a user space program alredy can read all your files and memory of processes of your user. People just read big bad kernel or rootkit without considering what's alredy possible.
  - LollipopYakuza 1mo ago
    I understand the logic, but I think most people don't realize the implication or don't care.
AndriyKunitsyn 1mo ago
The Verdana font that your message is written with - how can you be sure that its TrueType bytecode hasn't escaped the sandbox and snuck into your ring0? You either put some trust into the systems made by other people, or you don't touch computers at all.

mysteria 1mo ago

Wouldn't it be possible to have two tiers of servers here? Like have one that's accessible to everyone with a possibly increased risk of cheating and one restricted to Windows users. I remember in the old days some games had optional anticheat and there were servers with and without it.

john_strinlai 1mo ago
of course that would be possible, but i can't see ubisoft opting into that. it'd be an additional expense for a very small % of the player base of a 9 year old game.

ChrisArchitect 1mo ago

Source: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/4WKJhG6v6C9sbCOZkFZ6wG/ranked-faq https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/4W...

Ithildin 1mo ago

Going forward, I simply will not be purchasing any game that does not work on Linux. I realize that I'll be missing out on some titles, but Windows simply isn't worth the headache. CachyOS has been working great for me. Proton has been amazing. I have had zero problems with the games I typically play -- some of which are multiplayer. Luckily, I have not run into anti-cheat issues yet.

mihaelm 1mo ago
I'm pulling for Microsoft to create an XboxOS for PC you can just freely install on any machine, as that's about the only thing I care about regarding Windows. Then I could see myself dualbooting that when I want to play my Xbox collection. And it'd be nice to build a beefy machine to max them out on, once the PC component prices settle a bit. They're playing with that with the Xbox Full Screen Experience on ROG Xbox Ally, but it's still running Windows 11 underneath. I just want the Xbox.
- summermusic 1mo ago
  We should invest in solutions outside of Microsoft for games. Even if Microsoft comes out with XboxOS, and even if somehow it isn't terrible, it will eventually be terrible and will enable companies to continue to do anti-consumer B.S. like what Ubisoft is doing here.
- caconym_ 1mo ago
  Given how dogshit Windows 11 is, and how dogshit the Xbox-branded apps have consistently been in the last 10 years or so (it's genuinely impressive how bad they are), it's hard to see why a new Microsoft thing wouldn't have all the same problems. They just don't make software to serve the user anymore.
  - mihaelm 1mo ago
    I like the software side on my Series X, so if they can bring that over to PC as an OS, that'd be great. I agree the Xbox on PC experience hasn't been stellar so far and I hope they ditch that app with the next generation, for the sake of current userbase. It was serviceable at best in my Windows 10 days. For anything not gaming related, I have Linux or MacOS.

trashb 1mo ago

This is funny since they are literally using "Easy Anti Cheat" and that fully supports Linux. From what I understand Easy Anti Cheat, makes it very easy for developers to run on Linux, basically it is a compile setting to support it. It is one of the anti-cheat providers that had decent Linux support since the beginning. Back before Proton and when it was new developers often denied requests for turning on Linux support, however this is the first time I head a developer actively turning it off. I think it speaks volumes of their intent that the game is to be "fully removed from the Linux platform", and they won't offer the single player experience or non competitive experience for Linux based customers. On top of that it seems to me they tried sneaking this statement in an announcement titled "Ranked FAQ". This shows they have no respect for their customers. https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/epic-online-services/platform-support https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/epic-online-services/platform...

tapoxi 1mo ago
EAC supports Linux, but by doing so you're disabling a number of security features since you're making the anti-cheat run entirely in userspace. Remember these games aren't Linux native either, so it allows Windows-using cheaters to lie to the process that they're on Linux and to only use userspace protection. The cheat then runs in kernel space and remains invisible. The only realistic way to solve this on Linux is enforcing secure boot w/trusted kernels and then running the anti-cheat in sandboxed eBPF kernel space. Embark is looking at this approach.
- altairprime 1mo ago
  > The only realistic way to solve this on Linux is enforcing secure boot w/trusted kernels and then running the anti-cheat in sandboxed eBPF kernel space. Embark is looking at this approach. Assuming secure boot, there’s another realistic way, which is to use vendor-signed readonly Linux OS images — not just kernels — that disallow process memory access to root, come with signed kernel drivers, and offer secure attestation support chained to secure boot. Steam Linux and Bazzite could both implement this easily; the former has a fixed hardware target list and the latter is already an ‘all in one’ solution. Since Linux users are generally competent at dual-booting, one would simply dual-boot into the sealed image to play PvP multiplayer games, no eBPF development or maintenance of anti-cheat required. Embark is within their rights to evaluate the workload of supporting DIY unsigned Linux instances through eBPF but doing so would create a viable competitor to an attestation-derived Valve Anti-Cheat for Steam Linux, and so likely inspire the giant in the room to step up and obsolete it.

bakies 1mo ago

I stopped buying Ubisoft games a long time ago for several other reasons

rf15 1mo ago
This article just made me think "wait, people still buy Ubisoft after everything they pulled in the past 15+ years?"

surcap526 1mo ago

[dead]

zokier 1mo ago

I expect competitive multiplayer to shift towards dedicated locked down gaming distros (such as steamos) that will offer fully signed hardware backed (tpm) remote attestable system for anti-cheats. Which will make casually playing such games pretty awkward.

scronkfinkle 1mo ago

There's a couple different ways to look at this. From a charitable point of view to ubisoft, they do not advertise support for Linux. Instead they openly state it's a window's only game. So when a third party (i.e. Valve) makes shim that grants linux functionality, it's not really on Ubisoft to maintain that. However, from a consumer perspective, this is incredibly frustrating. The average person does not think of "linux vs. windows". They just bought the steam deck and when they bought For Honor it was sold on that "platform". Again, it's hard to blame Ubisoft for this conundrum since they were never necessarily trying to be steam deck compliant to begin with, but it definitely feels wrong to take the game away from a player in this perspective. All that being said, historically across many games such as Rust, many are quick to blame linux for cheating, but pragmatically banning linux has yet to measurably reduce the amount of cheating that players report experiencing, so I don't agree with the decision at all. It's a footgun disguised as a band aid

yjftsjthsd-h 1mo ago
> So when a third party (i.e. Valve) makes shim that grants linux functionality, it's not really on Ubisoft to maintain that. I agree that it's not on them to maintain it, but that's different from intentionally breaking it.

dash2 1mo ago

I’d be interested in hearing why they can’t get decent anti-cheat on Linux. Are there technical barriers?

rocqua 1mo ago
It’s extra hard on Linux because the amount of ways you can reconfigure a linux machine to work around boot- or root-kits, the ways you can modify a running process, and hide what is happening from an existing process. Really, linux is meant to give you control over the software that runs in your computer. Anti-cheat is inherently about limiting what you can run on your computer. Windows is much more aimed at allowing you opt in to hard limitations.

egypturnash 1mo ago

I wonder how Valve will decide to handle the incoming wave of refund requests from well outside the normal 2h playtime window. Looking at the Steam page for this game, there's a "year 10 roadmap" post.

bragr 1mo ago
It is advertised as a Windows only game so I doubt they'll honor them, but we'll see.
- hananova 1mo ago
  Valve has in the past given refunds for something that was changed to deliberately no longer work on certain systems. Given that this involves their own hardware devices in this case they're likely to do so here.

einrealist 1mo ago

Client-side anti-cheat is a band-aid that will always punish legit players and merely hinder cheaters. 'The client cannot be trusted' applies to simple HTTP exchanges as well as to game state. Of course, if the server has to track and validate everything, it would cost more to operate game servers....

rf15 1mo ago
This is a solved problem with dedicated servers and a proper community. They're just trying to sell you One Faceless Corp Server because it makes them more money, even though it is less efficient because of scaling problems and also you have less control. This is "It works better in the app" applied to gaming services.

drcongo 1mo ago

These are the same dicks that want my kids to create dedicated Ubisoft accounts just to be able to use the PS5 games they've paid for. Never buying anything from these scammers again.

bbor 1mo ago

The fact that the top comment is joking about how this juggernaut of a game is some unknown nobody is part of the problem

yndoendo 1mo ago
After not supporting Ubsoft for years, I have no clue how popular or even which games they produce. This was my first time ever hearing about this game. Steams allows for blocking content from publishers and studios. Ditched them once they required you to use their own launcher. Years before completely replacing Windows with Linux. Ubisoft is dead to me so why should I retain useless knowledge?
rf15 1mo ago
I watch gaming-related news daily for fun and I don't remember this game at all. I remember other big publisher competitive online games fine, so I feel this one is particularly insignificant.

sergiotapia 1mo ago

If your game doesn't work on Linux I just won't buy it. I have a steam machine and a gaming pc, your game needs to work on Linux. This isn't 2008 anymore dude...

cloudie78 1mo ago

Vote with your wallet on this one. It’s time gaming companies start supporting Linux.

buzer 1mo ago

Someone in EU should try to make a complaint to the local authority who is enforcing ePrivacy Directive regarding anti cheats in general. Despite what people think ePD isn't limited to cookies and rather also applies all data read or stored in "terminal equipment" via use of electronic communications networks. I would say anti cheat should usually qualify. If they want to do it without consent then they need to show that it's strictly necessary for the service user specifically requested (and that applies for each piece of data written/read, including the OS information). There's good argument that anti cheat itself would need to be consent based. If you don't accept then you simply don't get placed in games with users who have it enabled.

altairprime 1mo ago
For anyone pursuing this, consider that the EU age verification apps are the EU’s first foray into digital anti-cheat systems at population scale. If you take the time to research how those are being designed and implemented and incorporate awareness of their work into your complaint about anti-cheats in gaming, your missive will be a lot more likely to strike the target and be taken seriously.
- buzer 1mo ago
  The age verification is it's own can of worms. I'm currently waiting for my native country (but not the one where I reside) to actually publish their wallet implementation. I'm planning to make complaint around it because the whole thing almost certainly breaches ePD. ePD's exceptions are actually for "information society service" rather than just any service. The ISS itself has it's own sets of requirements, but the important one here is that "normally provided for remuneration". Service provided by government as part of their public duty almost never fulfills that requirement. So in order to store or read data they would need consent. But consent requirements come from GDPR and it's unlikely that this type of consent would be "freely given" given the impact of refusal.
  - altairprime 1mo ago
    From a technical standpoint, there’s no functional difference: without secure boot and OS attestation, age verification is as ineffective as EAC on Linux, because you can simply `insmod GameGenie.ko code=A456-GH4C` to have your mobile device simulator kernel patch success into any challenge. At the surface level they’re different — one is PvP, the other is PvG, one uses webcams for Twitch, the other uses webcams for facial recognition — but the same set of kernel defenses enable both.

Telaneo 1mo ago

Aren't there EU laws on modifying software for interoperability and whatnot being legal? This and right-to-repair should block any opportunity for companies to intentionally prevent users from using their software the way they want. I'm sure the laws aren't written to actually to ensure that, but they should be.

senectus1 1mo ago

i predict this will get reversed. money speaks and valve is the carrot leading the money donkey