Halo: Master Chief Collection update brings Steam Deck support, but with a catch

Halo: Master Chief Collection has finally enabled Easy Anti-Cheat on Steam Deck!

If you’re not aware: MCC has been one of the primary examples of games that were listed as unsupported because of their Anti-Cheat solution. Even though you could launch the game and play any of the single player or LAN game modes on Deck when you launched the game without Anti-Cheat, it was still given an “unsupported” rating.

The fact that MCC is now shipping support for Steam Deck – with their update notes promising further Deck support in the future – is great to see.

There are a few known issues with this addition of Steam Deck support, though.

• Oddly enough, launching the game with one of the provided launch options will actually do the opposite. For example “Launch with Anti-Cheat Disabled” will actually cause the anti-cheat to be enabled. Weird.
• There are also some instances of freezing/crashing when leaving a party.
• Lastly, Steam Deck players may only play Campaign Co-op or Spartan Ops with other Deck players. Mixing and matching of cross-platform players will eventually result in a ‘Campaign Interrupted’ error and disconnection.

It’s unclear if these issues–especially the last one–will be resolved. Hopefully 343 and Valve can work together to resolve this issue.

The game is still rated “Unsupported” but should be rated at least “Playable” as soon as it goes through the rating process again.

What do you think? Are you excited to play Halo: Master Chief Collection on Steam Deck? Leave us a comment and let us know!