I considered it, but am now avoiding it because they’re going to add a Linux-incompatible anticheat.
Not entirely sure what the hell the article was talking about, there are already bonus editions that give you skins. Same as any other game.
I was about to buy this but apparently they are planning to change their current anti cheat software to FaceIt which does not support Linux. EAC is still used for upcoming selfhosted servers but ranking up is disabled. I’d rather not feel like being considered as a second class citizen so I’ll have to skip for now.
Other than that the game looks fun. I prefer to look in to the current state of the game rather than the promises of future content (which kind of contradicts my anti cheat point but eh), and I feel like the current price would be worth it even though it’s an early access game.
It’s a great game but there IS a catch that wasn’t mentioned.
The devs plan on implementing one of the more intrusive Anti-Cheats (Face It Anti Cheat) which doesn’t work on Linux which also stops all Steam Deck users from playing. It also forces you to disable virtualization on windows. I can’t recall the last time I had to go into bios to disable an option to turn off important windows features.
According to their stream, it’s non-negotiable and will be added regardless of what the community wants. But they did mention that community servers would be able to pick which Anti Cheat they wanted to use?
From what I read, it also requires Secure Boot to be enabled. I played the game for 90 minutes before reading about the anti-cheat change, fortunately I didn’t hit 2 hours and took a refund.
Disable virtualization? Hah right. Yeah, that’s a no go.
Well tbf, on most devices it’s usually disabled by default so this is one of the typical “well 99% of our users are unaffected so eat it or go away”. Always kinda dick-ish to do something like this.
But they did mention that community servers would be able to pick which Anti Cheat they wanted to use?
As I understand, there are three tiers to this:
- Official servers will use FaceIt exclusively.
- Servers rented from official partners will have the choice of FaceIt or EAC.
- Community-run servers will only be able to use EAC, and won’t be hooked into the global progression system.
One of the many problems with FaceIt is that the server-side component is not allowed to be freely distributed, which is why community-run servers won’t have the option to use it.
Personally, there is no way I am buying this unless if they reverse their plans to use FaceIt.
They’ve backed down from faceit for now because of community concern.
How does it run on Linux?
If you are in to singleplayer bot matches Ravenfield is pretty cool. The game’s workshop is vast, so you can go from a WWI shooter to 40K and everything in between.
It’s natively Linux so that’s neat as well
I’d also like to mention Easy Red 2 for this too. WW2 only (for now) but its all about playing with the bots and does run decent on a Deck.
They’re adding modding soon, so maybe it could become a semi-realistic ravenfield?
I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. Even if I only get a few weeks or months until they add FACEIT, it’s worth the $15.
FACEIT really is a bummer
I was interested about this game by the article, but what is FACEIT?
FACEIT is yet another completely useless, doesn’t-actually-work, trust-the-client anti-cheating tool. Basically, it makes it so that cheaters (and the game publisher) can claim cheating isn’t happening because, “there’s an anti-cheat tool” but in reality it doesn’t stop actual cheaters.
The entire purpose of anti-cheat tools appears to be to stop casual Linux gamers from being able to play the game. Microsoft has a big part in it as well because the very same intentional vulnerabilities in Windows that hackers use to install undetectable rootkits are what get used by anti-cheat software.
If Microsoft wanted they could close those vulnerabilities by making all privilege levels above administrator (of which Windows has two which is insane) inaccessible to anyone but Microsoft. Instead they just collect money from 3rd party vendors to sign their driver encryption keys, inherently trusting those vendors not to make software with vulnerabilities. It’s a recipe for insecurity and Microsoft likes it that way. It acts as a form of vendor lock-in.
Anti-cheat tools pretty much all work with the same basic assumption: Trust the client. What’s the first rule of network programming? Never trust the client!
