Anti-cheat has become a hot-button topic since the launch of Valve’s Steam Deck, with many developers now moving to add Linux support to their games to cater to users of Valve’s Linux-powered gaming handheld. That said, there are still a handful of large game studios that refuse to accommodate Linux gamers with their multiplayer game launches. With the game’s March launch rapidly approaching, the Steam page has officially gone live, revealing that Marathon will use BattlEye kernel-level anti-cheat, which will seemingly rule out compatibility with the Valve Steam Deck and other Linux distributions.
Like many other anti-cheat models, BattlEye does have a Linux compatibility mode, but it’s up to the developer to implement support for anti-cheat. Bungie’s only other game to use BattlEye is Destiny 2, according to GamingOnLinux, and that does not support Linux—likely an omission based on potential additional workload that would come from supporting Linux, or the perception that Linux is rife with cheaters. Combine that with the fact that there has been no mention of Steam Deck compatibility in the developer’s launch announcement, it seems unlikely that Marathon will be playable on Linux. According to the latest Steam Survey, Linux market share continued its slow upward trajectory to 3.8% of the total Steam user base, while Windows 11 lost 0.56%.
