If you’re looking forward to the release of Dungeonborne, the PvPvE dungeon crawler, it’s worth noting that you might not be able to play it on the Steam Deck. This information comes from users participating in the current playtest who say they have been banned after playing the game on Valve’s handheld.
Even as the best handheld gaming PC on the market, the Steam Deck has its weaknesses when it comes to gaming. One example is the Linux operating system’s incompatibility with various anti-cheat software.
When playing Dungeonborne on the Steam Deck, one user took to Reddit to show that they had been banned due to a “violation of the User Agreement.”
The ban in question was time-based and appeared to be no longer than 24 hours, luckily. However, developer Mithril Interactive has taken to the Dungeonborne Steam community hub to defend its decision to implement what has been accused of being an invasive anti-cheat system.
Dungeonborne deploys ACE anti-cheat, which like many other similar programs, sits at the kernel level of the operating system. This anti-cheat system has a history of causing these problems in games on Linux, and it looks likely that the above ban was a result of ACE encountering the quirks of Linux on a Steam Deck, and assessing it as a threat.
Most games won’t let you install them on the Steam Deck if there is an issue with the anti-cheat, giving you a warning about incompatibility. However, you can download Dungeonborne without issue and still boot and play the game on the Steam Deck. It’s only then that you’ll get flagged as possibly cheating, resulting in a ban.
While this Steam Deck banning issue is yet to be addressed, if you do wish to play the game via the latest playtest, it’s worth sticking to your gaming PC for now.
If you’re after new games to play on Valve’s handheld, check out our list of the best Steam Deck games, none of which will result in faultless bans.