It’s not because it doesn’t launch. It’s not because it runs badly. It’s not because of weird bugs. It’s entirely because of Easy Anti Cheat.
Right now, Halo MCC has a Gold rating on ProtonDB, the ONLY thing keeping it away from getting a Platinum rating (and in turn Steam Deck Verified) is the anti cheat support. I have played through all campaigns on Linux and some custom games with no problems other than that achievements don’t track (because EAC is disabled).
Valve and Epic Games have worked hard to make EAC compatible with Proton stupid easy. Here’s the documentation for making it work, https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/proton
I’m not a gamedev, but it really seems like a 5 minute job at most. Just drag/drop a file, rename it and publish. You could probably have an intern do it. Zero work on anything game related, the game already runs great through Proton. The ONLY thing that isn’t compatible is the EAC.dll file.
Even Battlefield 2042 (also uses EAC) enabled support for Proton. Are you really going to be outshined by that abomination of a game because you don’t want to spend 5 minutes tops on adding Proton support? I want to bring my Deck to a friend, connect to his 5Ghz wifi, and hop on Halo 3 matchmaking with him, and hundreds of thousands of people probably wants to do the same. It would re-enable the glory days of Halo LAN parties.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that, the game runs really well in Proton already (aside from EAC, obv). If MS wanted to sabotage it all they would have to do is use Windows Media Foundation as source for the videos. Valve would get into legal problems if they added support for this (which is one of many reasons why Proton GE exists).
Even Phil Spencer praised Steam Deck and its software iirc.
I believe you, but I’ll hold my breath until the Steam deck releases and we can see ourselves. At the very least players who can’t use Easy Anti-Cheat can still play regular custom games if they seek out groups that host them.
I really hope this is addressed in the next MCC developer update. I fear that they may have their schedule booked between their existing goals and manpower.
There’s been some false starts with Linux support for EAC. The first announcement about it was only for games that used an Epic Games login. I think it’s better now but I haven’t heard a neat summary or an opinion of a developer about it yet.
Knowing 343, they will eventually support it, but it will be after some drama and possibly when the potential playerbase has moved on. Splitgate already supports Linux, I’d imagine that could quench the Halo thirst of quite a few players.
The documentation I linked is the new way of doing it, that’s compatible with all EAC versions. At least since Epic Games bought it (2018), so it definitely covers MCC.
They’ll probably end up supporting it. “How fast?” Is a very good question, since they have a hard time supporting even their native devices, but I don’t see it as an impossibility.
We haven’t heard anything about MCC since the release of infinite, not even if there are future plans. And at the moment the servers are completely broken and they had to get outside parties to come in to help and still, currently… broken. 343 seems hopeless.
From what I’ve heard it’s just a click of a few buttons so really hoping it’s coming with the next update. I know 343Farn has at least expressed interest in it before back when this was becoming a new thing.
I’m waiting for an official answer to this from 343, there is zero good reasons to not allow EAC support for Linux except that 343 is a Microsoft owned company and that having one of their flagdhip game running flawlessly on a non Microsoft OS and a non Microsoft device would make them look weak…
I can’t seem to edit the post, so I will say it in a reply:
THE NEW UPDATE INCLUDED THE REQUIRED .SO FILE!!!
Sadly it also kinda broke Proton support so Proton will need an update, but that’s a Valve/Proton problem and should be fixed in like 3 hours.
Infinite uses their own anti-cheat, but seeing as they opted to support MCC there may be hope for that as well.
One thing of note however, Infinite’s AC is VERY strict. I had to put my gaming VM in “stealth mode” in order to even get to the main menu (costs a few frames). There are very few games where I have to do that, so they are clearly serious about it.
Kernel level AC is just not going to work through Proton.
Bummer. I suppose they gotta do what they gotta do to try to keep cheaters out. I just hope they have an option to turn it off so i can play campaign natively on steam deck without the need to stream via GamePass Beta. At the very least it would be cool to be able to play the campaign.
343 clearly does not care about keeping out cheaters. just plugin a controller and MCC gives you an aimbot. the lack of EAC support for proton is strictly about Microsoft wanting people to buy Windows. i can think of no other reason for an update that intentionally makes the game run worse on proton.
