Splitgate 2 - Beta only playable on Steam Deck but not desktop Linux? (store.steampowered.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by thingsiplay@beehaw.org to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.ml

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Splitgate 2 opened the public beta since today or yesterday. Unfortunately the game does not run on desktop PC with a Linux operating system. Others have the same problem.

But whats weird is, people claim it works on Steam Deck and even the official blog post from the devs says they support the Steam Deck. There is no word about general Linux desktops.

So does the developers treat the Steam Deck like a console and make their games not playable on general purpose Linux desktops? Its weird, because otherwise it is playable on a general desktop with Windows too. Even the previous game Splitgate 1 (which they shut off) worked on desktop Linux. It makes no sense!

I'm totally disappointed right now. Because I was excited for this game. It got some hero abilities (I like that) and even a map creator.

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[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 14 points 2 weeks ago

SteamDeck=1 %command% was the first thing I tried. Marvel Rivals has not a similar problem, because Marvel Rivals supports general Linux and the Steam Deck. The reason why the SteamDeck variable is needed is, because with a recent updated of the game the launcher does not work properly in Proton. And in Steam Deck mode the launcher is not used.

But with Splitgate 2 it seems like they deliberately does only support the Steam Deck itself. So setting a variable to trick them is not enough. At first glance it looks like a similar problem, but only the outcome is the same. The problem is different.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

How do they check that it isn't Steamdeck? Start there. Maybe with strace?

[-] valveman@lemmy.eco.br 4 points 1 week ago

I see. I would suggest looking up other environment variables the Steam Deck sets on boot, but since this doesn't look to be the case, my second suggestion would be hardware spoofing.

But even then, it just doesn't make any sense. Why support only the Steam Deck specifically when it's well known that Valve is updating SteamOS to make it work with other handheld devices like the Legion Go? Assuming they put some kind of hardware checking in the game initialization phase, why go through all this effort just to lose potential players?

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 6 points 1 week ago

We assume its probably the anticheat, because its a Kernel level anticheat. Maybe it only works with an unaltered image of the Steam Deck OS and Kernel. This is highly speculative and it might be just a bug on the game or Proton side or something. This is still beta and the first day, so they collect information and see what the users have to say. Hopefully they will address this issue. At the very least being open and explain the situation, so we know for sure.

this post was submitted on 24 May 2025

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