Wuthering Waves was unleashed on the Steam Deck, but only for one day

Wuthering Waves , that recent gacha RPG of anime styling and impenetrable jargonblasting , just didn’t work on the Steam Deck when it launched in May. It also doesn’t work right now. But for one brief, debatably glorious day on June 29th, it did.

And thus, Deck owners who’d persevered through a slightly fiddly installation process (explained here by YouTubesmith Deck Wizard) could finally take their first joyous steps into Wuthering Waves like a David Hasselhoff-buoyed East German in 1989. Unlike the Hoff, it wouldn’t last. Within hours, Steam Deck players were being booted back out of the game by a hitherto-unseen anti-cheat failure.

What gives? Or gave? In short, Wuthering Waves’ 1.1 update seemingly altered said anti-cheat in such a way that enabled the game to launch on Linux-based operating systems, including the Deck’s SteamOS. Previously, it was possible to install the Windows version of the game launcher, but actually getting into the game itself proved impossible.

Version 1.1 not only allowed the launcher to launch Wuthering Waves, but for the game to become fully playable, if by most accounts a bit slow on the Deck’s modest processing bits. Still, before you could say "Absorption is only possible when your Data Bank’s level is equal to higher than the Tacet Discord’s level", or indeed understand whatever the fuck that means, a scary-looking "Anti-cheat system works error" message appeared to forcibly close Wuthering Waves back down.

A follow-up upd.