Apex Legends players reporting false bans on Steam Deck

A series of threads and posts from Apex Legends players on Steam Deck has several users reporting that they’re being falsely banned without a way to get their accounts back.

The Steam Deck has allowed PC gamers to take their favorite titles on the go. The library of deck-verified titles is ever-growing and contains everything from indie games to the biggest titles out there.

Apex Legends is one such verified game, and some players have opted to queue up for their favorite battle royale while they’re away from their PC. And, considering the game is free-to-play, it’s an easily accessible game even for players picking up a deck without an existing library of games.

However, several players have reported that they’re being permanently banned from Apex Legends when playing from their Steam Deck, with Valve-developed software called Proton being the main suspect.

Steam Deck Apex Legends players reporting false bans

Apex Legends has been a verified game on the Steam Deck for almost a year now. While it’s possible to try and run any game regardless of its verification status, games that are verified have to function on the platform to acquire and maintain verification.

Users haven’t complained about how the game itself runs on their deck. Rather, the problem stems from users getting banned for playing the game. What’s more, many of the users reporting these bans and claiming that they’re false have been banned right after the most recent Apex Legends patch.

An Apex Legends player that reported a false ban on their account compiled a series of forum posts and findings that have revealed this to be a widespread issue.

Proton is the main suspect after investigation from users getting banned on the Steam Deck. It’s a compatibility tool that’s a vital part of making games work on the device, meaning that everyone trying to play Apex on their deck could be affected by this issue.

The original poster behind the length thread about the issue on reddit showed their attempts to reach out to EA’s support staff with, according to them, no response from the team.

Respawn have yet to respond to the issue at the time of writing. Apex Legends fans may want to hold off from playing on their Steam Deck until more comes to light about the nature of these bans.