One of the most popular games on Steam has hit a snag for Steam Deck players. Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online are no longer supported for Valve’s PC handheld.
Rockstar Games explains in a post for Update 1.69 (and spotted by The Verge), that its game won’t be supported by Steam Deck due to the integration of BattlEye Anti-Cheat for Grand Theft Auto Online. The goal was to put a limit on cheating in its open-world MMO, but that came at the cost of Steam Deck support.
This change from verified to unsupported via the Deck Verified program means Valve considers it not playable at all on Steam Deck. While you can still play the GTA 5 single-player campaign, you won’t be able to hop into GTA Online, and GTA 5 is overall not supported.
This will affect a lot of players. Despite being almost a decade old, GTA 5 is still one of the most consistently played video games on PC. At the time of this writing, it’s ranked 11th on Steam Deck’s top-played list for the past year and has over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB.
The addition of BattlEye, long-requested by online players due to rampant cheating, was added to the game on Tuesday. It’s comprehensive and widely-used software, capable of identifying IP addresses, hardware, and other information from guilty players. You can also switch it off through the Rockstar Games Launcher, according to the official FAQ, since it only needs to be used when playing GTA Online.
It’s unclear what about the anti-cheat system would create such an obstacle. BattlEye posted on X (formerly Twitter) back in 2021 that it would support Proton, the Steam Deck’s OS layer that allows the Linux-based system to play Windows games. According to The Verge, it also still appears to work, and should be easy to enable.
“BattlEye on Proton integration has reached a point where all a developer needs to do is reach out BattlEye to enable it for their title. No additional work is required by the developer besides that communication,” Valve also noted that year ahead of the Steam Deck’s release. It’s enabled for games like Rainbow Six Siege, Destiny 2, and The Crew 2, among others, on Steam as well. However, other game launchers tend to not work well on the Steam Deck, part of the reason why Dragon Age: The Veilguard likely won’t have to use the EA launcher to run on Steam.
According to a Reddit user who reached out to Steam support, Valve is working with Rockstar on a fix, and the publisher has “heavily discounted the game” in response. Currently, the game’s premium edition is 25% off, while its premium edition and Great White Shark Card bundle is 66% off, down to just $20.
