Fortnite on Steam Deck? Epic Games Hires To Expand EAC Support for Linux

Despite prior harsh criticism from the company’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, it seems as though Epic Games may finally be changing its tone on Linux gaming. According to a recent job posting on the Epic Games site, the game studio is currently looking to hire a security engineer with “deep knowledge of Linux and Windows OS internals.” The engineer will work on Epic Online Services, more specifically, Epic is looking for a Senior Game Security Engineer for its anti-cheat systems to work on “not only our titles but a wide variety of games from around the world” and to “champion Linux anti-cheat capabilities for Epic.” All of this is to say that Epic Games is looking to expand Linux support for Easy Anti-Cheat, and the job description includes mentions of reverse engineering common cheats and malicious software and working with external game developers on EAC implementations based on data analysis.

It’s worth noting that EAC already has a Linux compatibility mode, although it appears to simply deactivate the kernel-level anti-cheat capabilities, since that’s the main component of EAC that is incompatible with Linux. Previously, the head of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, has been skeptical about supporting Linux in EAC, despite eventually implementing a Linux mode after the launch of the Steam Deck. Notably, however, Epic’s flagship game, Fortnite, still does not support Linux, despite the user-space EAC implementation other games use. Recently, there appear to also have been changes in Fortnite’s player base and playing habits that resulted in a round of layoffs that have affected over 1,000 workers at the company, so it would not be a surprise to see Epic Games switch up its strategy surrounding Fortnite and EAC in response to the Fortnite downturn.