Following the massive success of the Steam Deck, Valve’s upcoming Steam Machine is, essentially, a PC console powered by SteamOS. Housed in a tiny cube, the as-of-yet unpriced device is very exciting, and adorably sized in its cube-shaped chassis.
However, the Steam Machine does have one major issue, and it’s the same issue that has plagued many games on SteamOS played through the software’s Proton compatibility layer: anti-cheat.
Looking at the majority of “borked” games on supported game tracker ProtonDB shows that anti-cheat is a real issue for Steam Deck, and soon-to-be Steam Machine, owners. Titles like Destiny 2, which is admittedly suffering anyway, PUBG, Battlefield 6 and more are unplayable on the handheld due to the fact that anti-cheat simply doesn’t work alongside Proton.
In a discussion with Eurogamer, a Valve representative explained that anti-cheat will not be miraculously solved by the time that the Steam Machine releases in early 2026. However, if the hardware—and therefore the SteamOS software—continues to grow in market share compared to Windows, it will push the needle for devs to support Proton or develop Linux-specific options in the future.
“While [the] Steam Machine also requires Dev participation to enable anti-cheat, we think the incentives for enabling Anti-cheat on Machine to be higher than on Deck as we expect more people to play multiplayer games on it,” Valve said. “So ultimately we hope that the launch of Machine will change the equation around anti-cheat support and increase its support.”
Of course, that does potentially open a whole other can of worms: unlike a console, the Steam Machine is an open platform. It’s not a closed box. Players can—and some will—be able to install whatever they like on the system, including cheats. Games like Rainbow Six Siege X are constantly battling cheaters, and supporting Proton could—not will—open the door to more cheaters.
There’s been a lot of chatter over the past few days with many saying that the release of the Steam Machine means it’s “over for consoles”, but Valve’s box still has some major issues. SteamOS, due to Proton, still has some annoying Shader Cache issues, some games require users to tweak Proton options to get games to work, and some games will still straight up not work on the hardware, whether that’s due to anti-cheat other reasons. Additionally, just because a game is supported doesn’t mean it runs well, and sometimes unsupported games actually work fine.
For many, a console is largely just about convenience and being able to play the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield without issue. Steam Machine doesn’t entirely offer either of those, which will suck for some. Not for me, and maybe not for you, and I’m very excited to see where SteamOS goes over the next few years.
