Splitgate 2 opened the public beta since today or yesterday. Unfortunately the game does not run on desktop PC with a Linux operating system. Others have the same problem.
But whats weird is, people claim it works on Steam Deck and even the official blog post from the devs says they support the Steam Deck. There is no word about general Linux desktops.
So does the developers treat the Steam Deck like a console and make their games not playable on general purpose Linux desktops? Its weird, because otherwise it is playable on a general desktop with Windows too. Even the previous game Splitgate 1 (which they shut off) worked on desktop Linux. It makes no sense!
I’m totally disappointed right now. Because I was excited for this game. It got some hero abilities (I like that) and even a map creator.
Loaded up Steam yesterday and saw the news about Splitgate 2 coming out. I said to myself “Let me guess, they’re proudly blocking Linux, right?”
Today I opened up Lemmy. This post, right up top.
The thing is, they seem to not block Linux entirely, as it runs (and is officially supported) on Steam Deck. From the outside it looks like the anticheat tool works only on certified devices or configurations when they use Linux. Maybe this is the first game that only works with a specific Kernel. This would make sense, as this is a Kernel level anticheat that would only work with known or whitelisted Kernels in example.
I’m just speculating here, so don’t want to spread false information in case this is wrong speculation. But the official support for Steam Deck is correct.
Several assholes, I mean companies, are doing this. I’ve experienced this with GOW Ragnarok. I had to launch it with
SteamDeck=1 %command%They’re trying to split platforms so hard. Anything but to let Linux users enjoy something for once without having to hack shit up. Then they complain about “cheating” on Linux. Fuck off.
a concerning trend, they fingerprint the hardware of approved handhelds (Deck) instead of just letting Linux players play
Proton github has a possible workaround.
I wouldn’t experiment with renaming or deleting such files to trick an anticheat tool. There could be a potential to flag and ban a player account. It’s too risky to me.
You could also point Steam custom launch command to PortalWars2Client.exe and leave the files as is, but I suppose you still could be banned.
Might be unrelated, but Marvel Rivals has a similar problem. If you just download it and play straight away, it won’t open; you have to set an initialization flag
SteamDeck=1to make it open (source)Maybe it’s the same situation and this flag solves the problem, or maybe it’s something similar
SteamDeck=1 %command%was the first thing I tried. Marvel Rivals has not a similar problem, because Marvel Rivals supports general Linux and the Steam Deck. The reason why the SteamDeck variable is needed is, because with a recent updated of the game the launcher does not work properly in Proton. And in Steam Deck mode the launcher is not used.But with Splitgate 2 it seems like they deliberately does only support the Steam Deck itself. So setting a variable to trick them is not enough. At first glance it looks like a similar problem, but only the outcome is the same. The problem is different.
How do they check that it isn’t Steamdeck? Start there. Maybe with strace?
I see. I would suggest looking up other environment variables the Steam Deck sets on boot, but since this doesn’t look to be the case, my second suggestion would be hardware spoofing.
But even then, it just doesn’t make any sense. Why support only the Steam Deck specifically when it’s well known that Valve is updating SteamOS to make it work with other handheld devices like the Legion Go? Assuming they put some kind of hardware checking in the game initialization phase, why go through all this effort just to lose potential players?
We assume its probably the anticheat, because its a Kernel level anticheat. Maybe it only works with an unaltered image of the Steam Deck OS and Kernel. This is highly speculative and it might be just a bug on the game or Proton side or something. This is still beta and the first day, so they collect information and see what the users have to say. Hopefully they will address this issue. At the very least being open and explain the situation, so we know for sure.
Wasn’t Splitgate 1 a pretty overwhelming disappointment? Kinda scummy to turn off the servers and then work on releasing a second installment.
Steam Deck is a Linux desktop.
Alas, this game is currently “borked”. Some people say switch to Proton Experimental. https://www.protondb.com/app/2918300
There is a weird treatment done by some anti cheats where they allow SteamOS but not other Linux distros. Most prominent of those I know is ACE.
Also back when I tested it, no Proton version did the trick. Recent protondb reports suggest the same.
