Epic intends to launch Fortnite on Linux, but first, it's "rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat" to support the move."Once [EAC Linux v2 is] working with a critical mass of distro maintainers, we'll bring Fortnite to Linux via the Epic Games Launcher," the company announced. "We'll also make these improvements available to other developers so they can bring their games to Linux players."More PC games than ever are playable on Linux, thanks in part to Valve's Proton emulation, which allows many Windows games to be played on SteamOS and has been essential to the Steam Deck's success. But some of the biggest multiplayer games have been holdouts, because opening the doors to Linux represents a security and cheating risk.For example, Facepunch COO Alistair McFarlane said last year that the studio's popular survival game, Rust, is unsupported on Linux because of cheating."There are no plans to support Proton or Linux," McFarlane said at the time. "It's a vector for cheat developers, and one that would be poorly maintained by both us and EAC due to the low user base. When we stopped support for Linux, we saw more cheat users exploiting Linux, than actual legitimate users."Epic's move could potentially change that calculation for Rust and other games. One hurdle: Most of the people I know who play games on Linux do so on a Steam Deck, but according to an Epic blog post that goes into the plan's technical details, the Steam Deck does not currently support the new EAC Linux v2 solution. Epic says that it is "actively talking with Valve" about making it happen.Regarding Fortnite specifically, game security engineering director Rick Deist told PC Gamer on a call this week that Epic is "investigating compatibility with Steam Deck and SteamOS devices." (In related news, Epic has released a new Epic Games Store client which includes a Linux version for the first time.)"We want to let players play where they want to play as much as possible," said Deist.