By What a time to be alive. The news just keeps coming for Steam hardware, and this one is a big one: Epic Games has released a preview of its brand-new Epic Games Launcher with native Linux support, and alongside it confirmed that Fortnite is coming to Linux, backed by a rebuilt version of Easy Anti-Cheat.
A new, faster Epic Games Launcher
The new launcher is now available as a Preview on Windows, macOS and, for the first time, Linux. Epic is pretty open about how it was built, describing the new launcher as vibe coded, and admits the first release is light on features. It even jokes about one of its headline additions being a shopping cart.
Speed is the big focus. Epic promises faster cold starts, quicker switching between the library and the store, and lower background resource use, and it’s directly comparing the new launcher’s start-up and restore-from-tray times against Steam. On top of that you get party and voice chat across Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, a dedicated page for each game with its status and play controls, collections, grid or list library views, a customisable top bar, search that filters as you type, and a downloads view that shows speeds plus active, queued, scheduled and failed downloads in one place.
Getting started is simple: download the installer from the Preview website, install it and sign in. Your account, purchases, installed games, cloud saves and progress all carry over.
Fortnite is coming to Linux
This is the most exciting part. Epic is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat for Linux and working with distro maintainers on the security requirements. Once it works with a critical mass of distros, Fortnite will come to Linux through the Epic Games Launcher. Epic plans to pilot the new anti-cheat, called EAC Linux v2, in Fortnite first, then make it available to other developers so they can bring their own multiplayer games to Linux players.
EAC Linux v2 doesn’t install its own kernel module. Instead it leans on security features Linux already has, such as Secure Boot, a TPM 2.0, a signed kernel and kernel lockdown, and checks them when a protected game starts. Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, openSUSE and Universal Blue distros like Bazzite are among those whose signing keys are already on Epic’s list. If you launch a protected game without meeting the requirements, you get an error message rather than a ban.
What about the Steam Deck?
This is where it gets a little more complicated. Epic says the Steam Deck doesn’t currently support the features EAC Linux v2 needs, so Fortnite isn’t ready to run on the Deck just yet. The good news is that Epic says it is actively talking with Valve and hopes to support the Steam Deck and Steam hardware in the future.
I can’t stress how big this could be. Anti-cheat has been the biggest thing keeping popular multiplayer games off Linux and the Steam Deck, and Epic opening its solution up to other developers could finally change that. Hopefully this means we start to see games like Madden, EA Sports FC and Destiny become playable down the line.
What’s next
Epic says the Preview is just the beginning, and it will keep shipping updates, optimisations and new features on the road to the full release. There’s no date yet for Fortnite on Linux, but this is a bigger deal than a lot of people realise, and shout-out to Epic for taking the charge on the anti-cheat problem. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.