A new MMORPG has been released with Lost Ark. Now many users want to know if they can play Lost Ark on the Steam Deck at launch. MeinMMO explains what the situation is with Lost Ark.
What is the Steam Deck? The Steam Deck is a handheld console by Valve. On this handheld device, which resembles the Nintendo Switch, you can play Steam games on the couch without needing your gaming PC.
Many users are now hoping that they will soon be able to play the MMORPG Lost Ark on the couch with the Steam Deck. Lost Ark is a huge success on Steam with over 1 million players simultaneously.
Does Lost Ark work on the Steam Deck?
This is the current status: Valve tests all games for the Steam Deck and verifies them afterwards. However, Lost Ark has not yet been officially tested for the Steam Deck. Therefore, there is still no official statement from Valve on whether the popular MMORPG works on the device.
What is certain, however, is that Lost Ark uses “Easy Anti Cheat” (EAC) as a protection mechanism. This is meant to prevent players from cheating in the game or doing other bad things. However, Anti-Cheat does not currently work seamlessly with Linux and therefore also causes problems on the Steam Deck. There are already several multiplayer games that currently do not work on the Steam Deck.
Anyone looking at the unofficial list from Steam Deck will see: All games that do not work on the Steam Deck rely on anti-cheat programs that cause problems on Linux (via steamdeckverified.avery.cafe).
Valve had indicated that in the future anti-cheat should also work on Steam, but we cannot currently tell you when that will be. However, if Valve makes a statement, we will keep you updated.
So far, it seems that you cannot play Lost Ark on the Steam Deck.
What other options are available? Generally, there is also the option to install Windows 10/11 on the Steam Deck. However, there is little user experience so far regarding how good the performance is on the Steam Deck under Windows. You also need basic knowledge of how to install an operating system and create a new partition on a hard drive.
Additionally, Windows 10/11 is not optimized for the Steam Deck, as Microsoft has not adapted the design or interface of Windows for the Steam Deck.
Cool alternatives to play Lost Ark on the couch
What alternatives are there? If you still want to play Lost Ark on the couch, there are at least a handful of alternatives you can currently try:
- For example, you can stream Lost Ark via Steam Link. Here, you stream your gaming PC to your smartphone. This requires a fast internet connection and hardware.
- Alternatively, you can also use Moonlight. This is another streaming service where you can stream your games to your phone. However, you need an Nvidia graphics card, AMD Radeon graphics cards are not supported.
- GeForce Now is officially supported according to Nvidia (via nvidia.com), but the game is currently not available via GeForce Now.
Mobile alternatives: If you are still interested in mobile gaming, there are exciting alternatives available besides the Steam Deck. MeinMMO presents the most interesting alternatives that you can also play on the go and are already available:
Steam Deck: Here are the 4 most exciting alternatives of 2021
