Linux users who are running Battlefield V under Wine with DXVK are being permanently banned from Electronic Art's Battlefield V because the anti-cheat system is mistakenly detecting them as cheating.
Wine is an application that allows users to run Windows programs directly in Linux. To better run 3D games, users can install the DXVK package, which will create new Direct3D DLLs that utilize the Vulkan graphics API to render games in Wine.
According to a forum post at Lutris.net, Linux users are reporting that Electronic Art's anti-cheat system for Battlefield V is detecting these DLLs as a game modification and triggering an automatic and permanent ban on their accounts.
"Good friends, finally after some time without being able to play Battlefield V for Linux, this week I was using lutris-4.21, I was having fun when my anti-cheat, FairFight, blew me out of the game, so I was banned. As I was not using any cheating, I think the anti-cheat considered dxvk or the table layer that used at the time as cheating, I sent an email to EA, is the alert."
When users contacted EA to explain that they were not cheating but rather using Linux with the DXVK package, they were told that the ban was "actioned correctly" and that they would not be removing the ban.
In particular, EA cited the following rules as being broken.
"Promote, encourage or take part in any activity involving hacking, cracking, phishing, taking advantage of exploits or cheats and/or distribution of counterfeit software and/or virtual currency/items"
The DXVK project page does state that using the DXVK Direct3D DLLs in multi-player games could be seen by anti-cheat systems as cheating and that users should use the DLLs at their own risk.
"Manipulation of Direct3D libraries in multi-player games may be considered cheating and can get your account banned. This may also apply to single-player games with an embedded or dedicated multiplayer portion. Use at your own risk."
Ultimately, these users were not trying to cheat, but simply play Battlefield V in the gaming environment of their choice with their paid-for license of the game.
Depriving users of their choice of gaming environments is a short-sighted decision by any game developer, especially as more people continue to move to Linux desktop environments.
BleepingComputer has reached out to Electronic Arts to see if they will resolve this issue, but have not heard back at this time.
Comments
Matthew1234543212345 - 3 years ago
My next door neighbor works at EA, I think he's in charge of Security (from what he told me). I saw him out walking the other day, he didn't look too happy.
adammitz123 - 3 years ago
I agree that people should have the right to play in whatever environment they want to play at since they paid for the game. As more gamers now giving Linux a try, I think it is not their fault for wanting to play the game in their system that does not support their OS natively and cause them to use 3rd party applications
chilinux - 3 years ago
Electronic Arts keeps going out of their way to prove they can't be trusted for gamers to invest in. For Battlefield V, they make very clear in their "compare editions" that the only way to unlock all the features of the game is to pay for Origin Access Premier. They then promote the subscription method that has the best value as being the yearly $99.99 payments. There is probably already players with 11 months to go on their Origin Access Premier and are already locked out.
They also refuse to release stand-alone Battlefield V servers so banned players can at least choose to play with each other outside of the official EA run servers.
The situation is going to continue to get worse for EA. Windows 7's final update is next week. I know of some gamers that really want an alternative to Windows 10. In the case of Battlefield V, EA not only refuses to release the game for Linux but also have no release for Mac.
At the very least, they could have modified Origin to detect if it is run on top of Wine instead of Windows and warn the player they will be banned for cheating if they continue to run Battlefield 5 on Wine. Unlike actual methods of cheating, Wine makes no attempt to hide itself completely and exports a wine_get_version function in the ntdll for wine.
I also believe this action probably impacts more legitimate players than actual cheaters. YouTube has several videos that demonstrate that Battlefield V's anti-cheat has a history of not detecting actual cheating. So, the Battlefield V community is getting the negatives of this aggressive enforcement action but possibly not any positives.
Venompapa - 2 years ago
"Ultimately, these users were not trying to cheat, but simply play Battlefield V in the gaming environment of their choice with their paid-for license of the game."
Understandable statement but this wont give anyone the right to temper with the game files only to play in the "gaming environment of their choice". Maybe single player games, its highly unacceptable for multiplayer games most of the time. Ever heard of platform exlusivity? You dont play PS4 or PS5 exclusive titles on Windows/PC, same applies between Windows/PC and Linux/PC. Only because both OS using the same platform its not meant to be try play every single game on it, if you bought your game for Windows platform then play it on Windows platform. Battlefield V been released on Windows alongside few other platforms, once someone bought the game they did agree these facts and they should respect it and play the game on the appropiated platform.