Fortnite and Anti-Cheat To Get Windows on Arm Support Despite Abysmal Adoption Rates

[Cpt.Jank]

In something of a surprise, Epic Games today announced that it is working with Qualcomm to integrate support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X CPUs into Easy Anti-Cheat, officially adding Fortnite to the list of games that are available for Windows on Arm. According to the post announcing the upcoming change to EAC, support for Windows on Arm in Fortnite will arrive before the end of 2025. Until the EAC update arrives, EAC will block Windows on Arm players from playing games like Fortnite because Windows on Arm devices use Prism emulation and translation to run x86 apps on Arm hardware. At the time of writing, the unofficial Windows on Arm app compatibility tracker lists a total of 675 apps as compatible with the Arm SoCs, 121 of which are games. This is compared to 17,955 games that are verified or playable on the Steam Deck via Valve's Proton translation layer, according to ProtonDB.

Expanding support for EAC to Windows on Arm could also allow games like Apex Legends and Fall Guys to run on Arm devices. This news comes in spite of the slow adoption of Windows on Arm devices, which Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney infamously quoted as the reason for not supporting the Steam Deck or Linux as a platform. "If we only had a few more programmers. It's the Linux problem. I love the Steam Deck hardware. Valve has done an amazing job there; I wish they would get to tens of millions of users, at which point it would actually make sense to support it." However, market share for Windows on Arm still appears to fall short of the market share Linux commands in the desktop OS space.



The most recent data available from PassMark indicates that Qualcomm CPUs occupy a mere 0.3% of the laptop market and 0.1% of the overall CPU market share (when comparing AMD, Apple, Intel, and Qualcomm). Comparatively, most estimates, like the Steam Hardware & Software Survey, put Linux's market share at around 1.45%. In fairness, a recent report by ABI Research estimated that adoption of Windows on Arm would reach around 13% in 2025, however, this report was released in December 2025, and Windows on Arm market share has still failed to breach the 0.1% mark, according to available data.

A Counterpoint Research report in early 2023 found that nearly 13% of laptop shipments contained Arm SoCs, predicting this to rise to 21.4% by 2025, however we have yet to see this play out. The push for Arm support on Windows in Fortnite and EAC might remove the barrier to entry for enough developers and gamers that it could move the needle when it comes to adoption rates for Windows on Arm.

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[yfn_ratchet]

It's... smeh, trying to imply a 'gotcha' with EAC support on Linux has a lame leg because EAC support via Proton is a per-game implementation and is generally okay, at least for the games I play that use it. This definitely smells of oily palms though. No reasonable board would prefer the vague promise of a horribly received product segment maybe facing a +433% growth as opposed to a market share that's already established and slowly growing with sales of the acclaimed Steam Deck/Deck OLED. One sounds like a Shark Tank pitch and the other sounds like a safe (if underwhelming) bet.

 

[tpa-pr]

I will be legit interested to see how UE5 runs on an ARM GPU. Because to my understanding the current versions of Fortnite struggle to run on top-end Nvidia GPUs too!

It's also pretty well known that Tim Sweeney does not like Linux, pretty sure he would port Fortnite to a literal potato before he even considered a distro

 

[RayneYoruka]

Microsoft pays. Like anyone would ever play it compared to x86 Linux systems.

 

[Patriot]

I would not be using windows at all if I could play pubg and rust on linux... Windows 10 is ok I guess... the forced downgrade to Windows 11 may just have me abandon games... for linux. At some point Saying F-windows and F-your game if you wont support my OS will be the only choice. Kernel anti-cheats need to die, it clearly doesn't work and just locks us into shite ecosystems.

 

[qlum]

As much as I want linux support for these games, the state of anti-cheat on linux is bad. EAC is really mostly a bypass on linux, and does not even stop cheats freely available on github. Games that enable it are basically just saying, sure linux users, you can play without anti-cheat.

As for server side, it's not as simple, I personally feel like a robust verification system that prevents people to make multiple accounts, combined with good tools to manually review / ban cheaters is the way to go. U

sually the problem is, cheaters can just move to different accounts freely.

 

[King Mustard]

"Fortnite and Anti-Cheat To Get Windows on Arm Support Despite Abysmal Adoption Rates"

Chicken and egg. This is a good start.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's also pretty well known that Tim Sweeney does not like Linux

That's not saying much, Tim Sweeney is nitwit who mistakes his bum for a hole in the ground and frequently has his head in both..

 

[Jermelescu]

This is actually huge, Microsoft needs more wins for WoA and this is definitely a good start for gamers, as Fortnite is pretty popular.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This is actually huge

To whom? And in what way? Go on, explain that one.

Microsoft needs more wins for WoA

No. Just no..

 

[Jermelescu]

To whom? And in what way? Go on, explain that one.

No. Just no..

Yes, for most people WoA should be more than enough. Even I wanted to buy one, but Android emulation is a btch, or at least it was when the Snapdragon Elite launched.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Is it just me or does it seem like there are certain forces that are trying to force arm on vast unwilling user base? I'm 100% sure that Qualcomm just threw a bunch of money at Epic to make this happen

 

[R-T-B]

I would not be using windows at all if I could play pubg and rust on linux... Windows 10 is ok I guess... the forced downgrade to Windows 11 may just have me abandon games... for linux. At some point Saying F-windows and F-your game if you wont support my OS will be the only choice. Kernel anti-cheats need to die, it clearly doesn't work and just locks us into shite ecosystems.

Both those would work probably run fine in linux (and in rusts case, does work fine on non-anticheat servers) if kernel level anticheat just would die already.

No. Just no..

Why not? It's not like the arm hardware is awful, just needs (a lot) more support from software vendors.

 

[Vya Domus]

I will be legit interested to see how UE5 runs on an ARM GPU

Badly.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yes, for most people WoA should be more than enough.

Moose Muffins! That idea is twaddle.

Why not? It's not like the arm hardware is awful, just needs (a lot) more support from software vendors.

And there it is. Seriously. Hell no. The Windows software ecosystem is diluted and muddled up as it is, we don't need to make it worse.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Say what you will about its gaming capabilities, but I absolutely love my Surface Pro 11.

WoA performs incredibly well at productivity tasks, especially if you rely on the MS Office suite to get work done.

Also, the battery life is phenomenal. I can go a week of normal use before needing to charge it, yet it remains as performant as it would be doing the same tasks on my desktop PC at home. Honestly the best mobile computer I've ever bought.

I had some missing apps initially like my VPN of choice not being compatible, but that's since been updated. And light gaming works surprisingly well. I mostly use it to play AoE and Two Point Hospital when I'm travelling.

Good to see Epics anti-cheat getting support. Hopefully the others will follow too.

All of this changes of course if you don't have another PC to do the heavy lifting for you (high-fidelity gaming, video editing etc). In that case get yourself a Ryzen-based laptop and you'll be good, but I'd argue that for most people, WoA is more than capable.

 

[R-T-B]

And there it is. Seriously. Hell no. The Windows software ecosystem is diluted and muddled up as it is, we don't need to make it worse.

I mean they still make an awesome option for Open Source stuff, but I get what you are saying.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I mean they still make an awesome option for Open Source stuff, but I get what you are saying.

Unless a unified code base can be created and employed for universal compatibility, it's a asking for disaster.

Also, the battery life is phenomenal. I can go a week of normal use before needing to charge it, yet it remains as performant as it would be doing the same tasks on my desktop PC at home. Honestly the best mobile computer I've ever bought.

While there are some upsides, sure...

Good to see Epics anti-cheat getting support. Hopefully the others will follow too.

...you not doing any serious gaming on such a device.

 

[R-T-B]

Unless a unified code base can be created and employed for universal compatibility, it's a asking for disaster.

That's basically linux and OSS land in a nutshell man.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That's basically linux and OSS land in a nutshell man.

Yeah, but that's the Linux world. Not at all the same dynamic, and the Windows world doesn't have the same system of common and interchangeable code libraries..

 

[Patriot]

Yeah, but that's the Linux world. Not at all the same dynamic, and the Windows world doesn't have the same dynamic.

IDK windows 10/11 are rolling releases. I have an HX370/4070 laptop, so 11 or linux for me. 11 nearly got deleted when it updated and broke anticheat in pubg... I am not on the early update cycle, just straight up latest win11 for everyone and it breaks anticheat. Game crashes on start... no reason shown why, and ofc, window 11 cant roll back the update. It is incredibly stupid.

This type of great wall anti-cheat is not anti-cheat it is anti-consumer and a security threat. I... hate cheating. I actively participate in recording and posting proof to get cheaters banned. The amount of hacks that should be catchable server side that are not is frustrating, but anti-cheat being used as an ecosystem capture to cover for lazy incompetent anti-cheat devs is quite infuriating.

I watched a pubg dev talk where they boasted about how many cheaters they were banning permanently with hardware bans... and then he got defensive as to why people didn't believe him in chat.
As the player count never dips... when they ban 66k/week 38k devices... and a 2min google shows, reinstall windows to bypass hardware ban.

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Weekly Bans Notice (03/03~03/09) - NEWS - PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

www.pubg.com

Now to be fair... it is very rare to encounter an aimbot. But they have all but given up on recoil macros and zero-bullet time. (all bullets of a mag hit you when the first bullet connects)

And im dragging us off topic.
IDK I think windows 11 rolling releases puts it in the same category of linux with a very un-unified kernel space, because the anti-cheat is tied to the kernel versions. So it being an arm-kernel or an x86 kernel has little impact.

 

[Jermelescu]

Moose Muffins! That idea is twaddle.

And there it is. Seriously. Hell no. The Windows software ecosystem is diluted and muddled up as it is, we don't need to make it worse.

WoA is the first commercial OS from Microsoft that doesn't have all the legacy and compatibility shit in it (natively). It needs to succeed and if the ecosystem improves so I can do all my work on it, Imma get myself one no doubt.
The battery life improvements are exactly what I need.