Can you play The Finals on Steam Deck?

❘ Published: 2024-03-12T16:22:35

the finals art with a steam deck oled behind it

The Finals is a free-to-play FPS that you can download from Steam. However, can you play it on the go with the Steam Deck?

Embark Studios’ The Finals is a fun FPS multiplayer you dig yourself into. Following its surprise launch at The Game Awards, the game has got a lot of attention owing to its unique concept of virtual arenas. The Finals is also free-to-play which means you can download it for free from Steam. But can you play it on Steam’s handheld?

At the start, there was some rotten news for those on the Steam Deck. The game is running Easy Anti-Cheat which is a common issue for many players on Valve’s handheld. We couldn’t even launch the game to see how the performance is without reinstalling Windows.

After a recent update, The Finals now does work on the Steam Deck. It’s a little buggy in places, but you can totally play the game as you would on a Windows PC.

The Finals now works on Steam Deck

There’s a precedent of Easy Anti-Cheat games working on the Steam Deck with games like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Apex Legends. We’ve even seen some teams shift to a new anti-cheat, just to ensure that players on Steam Deck are included.

Valve’s Proton supports Easy Anti-Cheat, and even other anti-cheat developers have said that it’s on the game studio to push the button. It’s been a running occurrence with Linux since online gaming started.

However, Nexon and developer Embark Studios have flipped the switch and the game now works through Proton Experimental. We have a whole guide on how to swap Proton versions.

The world is ever-shifting however. More and more people are being exposed to Linux each day. As Valve’s handheld is still taking the world by storm, it still only accounts for 2% of the player population on Steam.

It seems like Nexon has heard the small audience’s needs and delivered.

If you’re looking for even more The Finals guides then make sure to check these out: