Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney announced on social media that Fortnite won’t officially come to Steam Deck.
A Twitter user asked Sweeney if Epic had plans to update Fortnite to introduce compatibility between Proton, Wine, and Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat software. Sweeney’s answer was quick to crush the dreams of gamers looking to win a match and do a bit of Flossing on the go.
Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
Fortnite isn’t on Steam, but the Steam Deck is aiming to be an open platform — just like a normal PC. Owners of the device will be able to install software from almost anywhere — not just programs and games available on Steam. Despite Sweeney’s praise for the device, that same openness is the reason for the lack of Fortnite.
We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022
Customers have been patiently waiting for the Steam Deck since the original announcement and pre-order period this past summer. The handheld was originally set to launch in November 2011, but global supply-chain issues forced a delay until February 2022.
Hopefully they’ll be happy with everything else the device can do since they won’t be playing Fortnite.