Fortnite’s absence from Linux has always been about anti-cheat, not technology. Epic now says it has a plan to fix that. Linux players will be able to play, but their PCs will have to prove they’re trustworthy first.
In a technical post on the Epic Online Services blog, Epic says Easy Anti-Cheat has supported native Linux clients since 2014 and Wine/Proton since 2021. Both were opt-in per game, though, and many developers skipped them because the Linux version couldn’t match Windows-level protection.
The answer is EAC Linux v2. Epic will pilot it in Fortnite, refine it there, and then offer it to other developers. Epic’s launcher announcement adds that once v2 works with a critical mass of distros, Fortnite will arrive on Linux through the Epic Games Launcher.
On Windows, EAC leans on a kernel driver, but for Linux Epic says “we will not leverage an equivalent kernel module.” Instead, v2 uses a systemd service that runs only while a protected game is running, plus Epic’s own eBPF programs. It also leans on security features the kernel already has.
Those features become hard requirements:
- A signed kernel and kernel modules, using well-known keys
- TPM 2.0
- Secure Boot
- Measured boot
- IOMMU enabled with passthrough disabled (on non-handheld devices)
- Kernel lockdown in integrity mode
- Kexec disabled
- The BPF LSM loaded and active
Epic’s current list of well-known keys covers:
- Canonical (Ubuntu and derivatives)
- Fedora
- Universal Blue (Bazzite, Bluefin, and Aurora)
- Debian
- openSUSE and SUSE
- Rocky Linux
- Microsoft’s UEFI CA
Epic says it wants to open-source that list and accept community additions. It’s also inviting distro maintainers to get in touch so their signing keys can be added.
Out-of-tree modules, with NVIDIA’s drivers named specifically, must be built by an organization and signed with a well-known key. Epic also requires every enrolled Machine Owner Key to be well-known. That means a self-enrolled MOK used to sign locally built NVIDIA modules, a common setup on Fedora, won’t pass while it’s enrolled.
Epic does allow a separate, compliant boot entry just for protected games. It also says a system that fails the checks gets an error message, not a ban. The Steam Deck doesn’t support the required features. Epic says it is talking with Valve and hopes to support the Deck later.
We’ve seen this anti-cheat wall before: Marathon’s anti-cheat choice put its Steam Machine and Linux playability in doubt. Epic’s approach is the first serious attempt to get past it without a kernel driver. Universal Blue’s place on the key list is also good news for gaming-focused systems like the Bazzite dual-boot Piston V mini-PC.
The device that made Linux gaming mainstream is the one left out. Some Linux users will also bristle at boot attestation on principle, even without a kernel driver. But if Fortnite works on Linux under these rules, other developers will have a ready-made path to follow. Other multiplayer games skipping Linux could find it much harder to justify. Watch for the open-sourced key list and for any movement from Valve on Secure Boot for SteamOS.
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