Fortnite on Linux Is Coming, but Your PC Must Pass 8 Checks First
Epic will test its new anti-cheat in Fortnite on Linux first, with no date set. Your PC needs Secure Boot, TPM 2.0 and 6 more checks. Steam Deck is out for now.
Hakkı ALKANPublished 4 min read
Fortnite is coming to Linux, but there is still no release date, and your PC will have to pass eight security checks before Epic's anti-cheat lets you play. Epic is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), the software that detects cheating tools, as EAC Linux v2 and will test it in Fortnite first, according to its Epic Online Services announcement.
The gaming-focused distro Bazzite is already preparing players for it. Its latest release carries a signing key Epic trusts and a one-line command that tells you whether your machine is ready.
Can you play Fortnite on Linux yet?
No. Epic says EAC has supported native Linux games since 2014 and Windows games running through the Wine and Proton compatibility layers since 2021. That support is optional for each game, though, and many studios skipped it because the Linux version could not protect a game as well as the Windows one. "This is why Fortnite isn't available on Linux yet, but it's coming," Epic wrote.
Epic engineering director Rick Deist told The Verge that there is no timeline for the Linux version. When it arrives, it will come through the Epic Games Launcher, which now has a rebuilt preview version for Linux, not through Steam.
How is EAC Linux v2 different from the Windows version?
On Windows, EAC relies on a kernel driver, a piece of code that runs at the core of the operating system while the game is open. EAC Linux v2 drops that idea. It leans on security features already built into Linux, plus a small background service and eBPF programs, sandboxed code that can watch the system from inside the kernel without a custom driver.
The service installs the first time you launch a protected game and runs only while that game is open. Epic says games that already use the older Linux version of EAC can keep it for wider compatibility or switch to v2 for stronger protection.
What does EAC Linux v2 require?
Epic lists eight requirements and says it expects to adjust them over time:
| Requirement | What it does in plain English |
|---|---|
| Signed kernel and modules | The kernel and any drivers, including NVIDIA's, must be signed with a key Epic trusts |
| TPM 2.0 | A security chip, standard on modern PCs, keeps a tamper-proof record of how the system started |
| Secure Boot | The PC only starts software signed with trusted keys |
| Measured boot | Each boot step is logged to the TPM; GRUB and systemd-boot usually do this already |
| IOMMU on, passthrough off | Stops hardware cheat cards from reading game memory; not required on handhelds |
| Kernel lockdown (integrity mode) | Blocks even the root user from tampering with the running kernel |
| kexec disabled | Prevents swapping in a modified kernel without a full, logged reboot |
| BPF LSM active | Lets anti-cheat stop other programs from reading or writing the game's memory |
You do not have to run like this all the time. Epic says you can keep a separate boot entry that meets the rules and pick it only when you want to play. Launching a protected game on a system that fails the checks shows an error message, not a ban.
Which Linux distros are ready?
The signing rule is the one players cannot fix themselves, because Epic has to trust the key their distro uses. Its current list covers Ubuntu and Linux Mint (Canonical), Fedora and Silverblue, Universal Blue's Bazzite, Bluefin and Aurora, Debian, openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, plus Microsoft's UEFI key used by the common shim bootloader. Epic says it plans to grow the list and make it open source.
Bazzite 45, released on November 3 and based on Fedora 45, has already built a check around it. Typing ujust check-anticheat in a terminal tests all eight requirements and prints a pass or fail with tips for anything that failed. The tool only reports and does not change your settings.
One gap stands out. CachyOS, the most common distro in Valve's latest Steam Hardware Survey, is not on Epic's current key list, so its users may have to wait until the list expands. Linux reached 3.95% of Steam users in October 2026, up 0.90 points in a month, and an anti-cheat that works there would remove one of the main reasons gamers still keep Windows installed.
What about Steam Deck and SteamOS?
Steam Deck owners will have to wait. Epic says the handheld "does not support the required features" for EAC Linux v2 but that it is talking with Valve and hopes to support it later. Bazzite also warns Steam Deck users not to turn on Secure Boot for now, and asks other handheld owners to hold off on enabling kernel lockdown while it works on a fix.
Epic told The Verge it is "investigating" SteamOS support for Fortnite. Communications director Jake Jones later told GamingOnLinux that the new launcher will support SteamOS, Fedora, CachyOS and Omarchy, though that does not yet mean Fortnite itself will run on those systems or on the handhelds whose performance data now appears on Steam.