Valve’s Steam Machine could change PC gaming — if Linux anti‑cheat gets fixed

Valve recently unveiled its new Steam Machine, a console‑style PC designed to bring SteamOS and the Steam experience to a broader audience. While the hardware and SteamOS usability improvements are promising, a persistent problem could limit adoption: anti‑cheat support on Linux.

Many competitive multiplayer titles rely on kernel‑level anti‑cheat solutions that are difficult to port to or verify on Linux distributions. As a result, several popular games — including Fortnite, Valorant and PUBG — remain unavailable on SteamOS, and some studios have blocked Linux clients entirely to reduce cheating vectors.

The technical and industry challenge

• Linux distributions allow deeper kernel manipulation, which makes it easier to build purpose‑built cheat environments and harder for anti‑cheat systems to attest to system integrity.
• Major anti‑cheat providers (BattlEye, Easy Anti‑Cheat, Riot’s Vanguard, Valve Anti‑Cheat) have varying levels of Linux support; compatibility work has been partial and often complex.
• According to crowd‑sourced trackers, hundreds of anti‑cheat‑protected games still don’t run reliably under Proton/SteamOS, creating a chicken‑and‑egg problem for studios and player bases.

Why solving anti‑cheat matters

If Valve can create a secure, developer‑friendly sandbox or verification layer that satisfies studios’ cheat‑detection requirements, it could unlock a large portion of the PC gaming catalog for SteamOS. That would make the Steam Machine more attractive to competitive gamers and encourage studios to support the platform.

What Valve has already done

• Valve added compatibility layers (Proton) and worked with some anti‑cheat vendors to enable titles on the Steam Deck.
• Valve’s in‑house VAC supports its own titles like Counter‑Strike 2 and Dota 2 on SteamOS.
• Still, substantial gaps remain for many multiplayer games, keeping some developers from supporting Linux clients.

Outlook and implications

The Steam Machine could push a significant platform shift if Valve addresses anti‑cheat concerns — studios follow where players are. But building robust, cross‑distribution anti‑cheat support is technically hard and raises security and privacy questions. The path forward likely requires collaboration between Valve, anti‑cheat vendors and game studios to develop a standardized, secure approach.

Further reading: Proton compatibility and Valve’s efforts are documented on the Proton GitHub. For community tracking of anti‑cheat compatibility, see Are We Anti‑Cheat Yet.

Discussion: Would a Steam Machine that runs virtually every PC game (including competitive titles) make you switch from Windows — or are there other hurdles that matter more to you?