Grand Theft Auto Online has, in an eyebrow-raising move, been given an anti-cheat software named BattlEye over a decade after the game came out. As a consequence, it's now officially no longer compatible with the Steam Deck,

GTA Online has been given BattlEye anti-cheat software a decade after it initially launched on PC, and as a result, players can no longer play on their Steam Decks.

GTA V has consistently ranked among the top 20 most-played games on the Steam Deck for at least two years, and it even remained in the

Simply put, BattlEye aims to keep people in online games from doing things they're not supposed to. That's been an ongoing problem in GTA Online for many years, and a real challenge for Rockstar: Cheaters suck and GTAO is often a goat rodeo, but roleplaying servers enabled by mods are also a big part of what makes GTA Online so popular.

Nine years after its initial release, Rockstar has added the third-party anti-cheat software BattlEye to the PC version of GTA V, and it's been a long time coming. The addition of a PC anti-cheat was added as part of a larger title update to celebrate the game's eleven-year anniversary and remind us that the passage of time is inevitable.

Surprisingly, Rockstar have now added BattlEye anti-cheat to Grand Theft Auto V, and sadly it seems they have not enabled the support for Linux desktop and Steam Deck with Valve's Proton.

Lots of Rockstar-related news has hit today, headlined by the addition of anti-cheat to GTA Online on PC. A new update, out now for GTA 5 on PC, adds BattlEye Anti-Cheat for GTA Online. The patch notes are below.

A recent update for Grand Theft Auto V unintentionally exposed PC files for Grand Theft Auto 6 and Red Dead Redemption, fueling excitement among fans awaiting official announcements from Rockstar Games.

The update in question and the use of BattlEye specifically was first noticed in the background changes catalogued from Steam before Rockstar Games put out its patch notes on the GTA Online support site.