The point here is that the anticheat solution needs to be written for a specific operating system because it runs “outside” the game in a privileged way to try and detect cheating.
So they have anticheat on Windows, and their own consoles will have a different anticheat system that is specific for the console OS.
Running games on Linux via Proton is effectively an emulation or translation layer, and the Windows-specific anticheat is not going to work with that.
If Sony wanted to provide multiplayer support on Linux they’d also have to provide a native Linux implementation of the whole game, rather than relying on Proton, which sadly not many publishers are doing at all. So its technically quite understandable why this isn’t possible.
Now, personally I think client anticheat is garbage and they should not be depending on that as a solution anyway, but that’s a separate argument!
Isn’t there some way to design the multiplayer to not trust the client? Assume the client has aimbot and all can see through walls, etc. Design it with those things being expected instead of all this draconian pwn the user’s system nonsense.
Server-side anticheat is more complicated to implement, so companies go with the lazy client-side rootkit instead
Server side anticheat also requires trusted servers.
A lot of games are mostly P2P with minimal stuff actually happening on their own hardware.
Server side anticheat is mostly implemented in all popular games. An aimbot however can’t be detected on the server side, it could just be a user moving their mouse perfectly. There’s lots of client cheats like that, which is why clientside detection still makes sense.
Exactly, and that’s why I expressed the sentiment that client anticheat is a poor solution. If you really really want to stop cheating, you have to do it on the infrastructure that you as the game developer have guaranteed and trusted control over, and that is the server.
Except we have a few ACs that work with proton. battleye and EAC being the notable examples.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/
The issue isn’t that the ACs can’t work. It’s that they don’t run at the kernel level under linux and so some developers have concerns that the ACs wont be as secure.
Though given how things have been lately with MP games. You have to wonder if theyre even secure to begin with.
Linux via Proton is effectively an emulation or translation layer,
Akshually, wine is not an emulator!
I’ll see myself out.
Mmn yeah. I described it as a translation layer also, which is more accutate, but I used The Bad Word because more people have an understanding of what an ‘emulator’ is in common usage and it felt appropriate in this context.