The Steam Deck will release pretty soon, but it’s probably not getting Fortnite. Not in the way of official support, that is.
Fortnite might not be available on Steam, but since the Steam Deck is an open platform, developers are free to support it however they wish. On Sunday, one Fortnite fan asked Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney if the battle royale phenomenon would come to Valve’s device. In short: it’s not looking good.
“Fortnite no, but there’s a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti-Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck,” Sweeny said on Twitter. He goes on to state that the open nature of the Steam Deck would make combating cheating in Fortnite very difficult due to its popularity.
Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
Sweeny’s comments aren’t all that surprising, considering The Epic Games Store and Steam are rival platforms. However, he explains that the Steam Deck using Linux is the primary issue. Since the open-source nature of that operating system makes it a hacker’s paradise. The last thing Epic probably wants Fortnite garnering cheaters on Call of Duty: Warzone’s scale.
So yeah, there’ll probably be no official Fortnite port on the Steam Deck anytime soon. It’s a shame because who wouldn’t want to floss while holding that big handheld. At least you can play Half-Life 2 on it.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.