Fall Guys on Linux is easier than it used to be, but the game still won’t run out of the box the way a native title would. It ships only for Windows, it’s exclusive to the Epic Games Store and it runs Easy Anti-Cheat, which for years blocked Linux and Steam Deck players outright. That changed once Epic added Proton support for Easy Anti-Cheat, and the setup itself has gotten a lot simpler since. Here’s the current process, plus what to do if it still won’t launch.
Is Fall Guys available on Linux
There’s no native Linux build of Fall Guys and there likely won’t be one. What you get instead is the Windows version running through Proton, Valve’s compatibility layer that translates Windows game calls into something Linux can run. The good news is that this works well these days. On ProtonDB, the crowdsourced site where Linux and Steam Deck players report how well Windows games run under Proton, Fall Guys currently sits at a Silver to Gold rating depending on setup, meaning it runs with a bit of tweaking rather than being broken outright.
One thing that trips people up: Fall Guys used to be a paid game you could buy on Steam. Mediatonic pulled it from sale on Steam in June 2022 when the game went free-to-play and moved exclusively to the Epic Games Store, shortly after Epic bought the studio. Existing Steam owners kept their copy and still get updates, but anyone installing it fresh has to go through Epic, which is exactly why this guide leans on Heroic Games Launcher rather than Steam.
Installing Heroic Games Launcher
Heroic Games Launcher is a free open-source game manager (it wraps a command-line tool called Legendary, one of the earliest working Epic clients for Linux) that gives you a proper library view and one-click installs for Epic Games titles, since there’s no official Epic launcher for Linux. It’s the same tool this site’s Rocket League on Linux guide uses, and the two setups share a lot of ground.
The easiest way to get it running on most distros is the Flatpak build. Make sure Flatpak is set up on your system first, then open a terminal and run the matching command for your distribution:
# On Debian and Ubuntu based distributions
sudo apt install flatpak
# On Arch based distributions
sudo pacman -S flatpak
# On Fedora Workstation
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Once flatpak is installed, you can run the following commands irrelevant to your distribution :
flatpak install flathub com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl
If you’d rather skip the sandboxing Flatpak adds, native packages exist too. Arch and Fedora users can grab one from Heroic’s own GitHub releases page and Debian or Ubuntu users can download the .deb and install it with sudo dpkg -i heroic_*.deb. Whichever method you pick, launch Heroic once it’s installed and log in with your Epic Games account.
Claim and Install Fall Guys
Fall Guys is free, so grabbing it just means adding it to your library once. Open the Epic Games Store page for Fall Guys in a browser, log in and hit Get. It’ll now show up under your library inside Heroic.
Now, from your Heroic Games Launcher library section, search for Fall Guys and hit the Install button.
While it downloads, open the Wine Manager tab on the left and install the latest build of GE-Proton, a community-maintained fork of Valve’s Proton built by the developer GloriousEggroll that regularly ships anti-cheat and driver fixes before they land in the official release. Recent Fall Guys guides have needed anywhere from GE-Proton 7.x to 9.x depending on when they were written, so grabbing whatever is newest in the Wine Manager list is the safer bet than chasing an exact version number.
Getting Fall Guys running smoothly
This is the step that used to take the most fiddling, and it’s also the part of this guide that’s changed the most. According to the Heroic Games Launcher wiki’s own Fall Guys entry, last updated in January 2026, the game should now work with no manual file editing at all as long as you’re on the latest GE-Proton build. If you’re setting this up fresh, try launching it that way first before touching any config files.
Enable the Easy Anti-Cheat runtime
Once Fall Guys finishes downloading, click the settings icon on its entry in Heroic and open the Wine Extensions tab. Turn on the Easy Anti-Cheat runtime here. Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), the anti-cheat middleware Fall Guys runs on, only got official Wine and Proton support in late 2021, which is the reason older guides describe this game as unplayable on Linux entirely. Without this runtime enabled, the game installs fine but refuses to let you into a match.
Pick the right Proton version
Head to the Wine tab in the same settings panel and set the Wine Version to whichever GE-Proton build you installed earlier. If the game crashes on launch or refuses to start, switching to a different GE-Proton release (or Proton Experimental as a fallback) resolves it in most reported cases.
If Fall Guys Still Doesn’t Launch
If you’re still unable to launch or play Fall Guys successfully after using the latest GE-Proton build, you just have to edit and copy a few configuration files, and then you will be able to play this game.
Open your file manager (named nautilus) and then go to the folder where you have installed the game (usually under Games/FallGuys/) and then copy the /FallGuys/EasyAntiCheat/easyanticheat_x64.so file to /FallGuys/FallGuys_client_game_Data/Plugins/x86_64/ folder.
easyanticheat_x64.so From One Location
Also, open the FallGuys/FallGuys_client.ini file with your favorite text editor (right-click upon it and then open with text editor) and modify the following line so that it looks like this :
TargetApplicationPath=FallGuys_client_game.exe
Save the file, restart the Heroic Games Launcher, and you are good to go! You can finally run Fall Guys on Linux.
As you can see at the top left, Fall Guys is running at smooth 60fps on my Fedora 36.
Advanced option: installing with Legendary from the terminal
If you’d rather skip a GUI launcher, Legendary (the open-source command-line Epic Games client that Heroic itself is built on) can install and launch Fall Guys directly.
- Install it from PyPI with
python3 -m pip install --user legendary-gl, - log in with
legendary auth, - then install the game with
legendary install 0a2d9f6403244d12969e11da6713137b.
Legendary downloads the game into ~/Games/FallGuys/ by default, the same folder structure the manual fix above expects, which makes the two approaches easy to mix if you started on one and want to switch.
This path still needs the same Easy Anti-Cheat runtime and Proton setup covered above, just configured through a launch script instead of a GUI toggle, so it’s really only worth the extra effort if you’re already comfortable managing Wine prefixes and custom launch scripts by hand rather than clicking through settings.
Playing Fall Guys on Steam Deck
Everything above applies to the Steam Deck too, since it runs a Linux base under Valve’s SteamOS. Switch to Desktop Mode, open the Discover app store and search for Heroic. Installing it this way pulls in the same Flatpak build covered earlier, and the rest of the setup, claiming the game on Epic, installing GE-Proton and enabling the EAC and EOS overlays, is identical to the desktop steps. The one snag that’s particular to the Deck is that Flatpak’s sandboxing can block Heroic from reaching folders it needs. If games fail to launch after installing normally, installing Flatseal from Discover and granting Heroic broader filesystem access under its permissions usually clears it up.
Troubleshooting common Fall Guys Linux issues
Even with the setup right, a few recurring problems show up across ProtonDB reports, Reddit’s r/linux_gaming and the Steam community guide for this game.
“Easy Anti-Cheat not initialized” on join. This almost always means the EAC runtime toggle in Heroic’s Wine Extensions tab got missed, or it needs re-enabling after a Heroic update. Double check it’s on before trying anything more involved.
Stuck on the loading screen. This is usually an account-linking issue rather than a Proton one. Make sure your Steam or console Epic account (if you have one) is properly linked in Epic’s account settings, since Fall Guys checks this during login.
Can’t join a friend’s party even with the overlay installed. Confirm the EOS overlay is enabled specifically for Fall Guys and not just installed globally in Heroic settings. The two are separate switches, and it’s easy to do one without the other.
Game update breaks anti-cheat again. Fall Guys ships collab seasons and balance patches often, and each one has a small chance of resetting the anti-cheat runtime flag or moving a file the manual fix depends on. If a previously working setup suddenly throws EAC errors right after an update, re-check the runtime toggle before assuming your whole config is broken.
If none of that clears it up, the Fall Guys ProtonDB page is the best live source, since reports there get updated within days of anything Epic or Mediatonic changes on their end.
Wrapping up
Fall Guys on Linux has gone from “needs a manual workaround for every launch” to “install Heroic, flip two toggles” over the past couple of years, mostly thanks to Epic’s Proton support for Easy Anti-Cheat maturing. It’s not the plug-and-play experience a native Steam title gets, but it’s close enough that the setup shouldn’t take more than a few minutes once you know which toggles matter.
Key takeaways
- Fall Guys has no native Linux build and runs through Proton via Heroic Games Launcher
- The game left Steam for good in June 2022 and is now free-to-play, Epic-exclusive
- Recent Heroic and GE-Proton versions often need no manual file editing at all
- Enable the Easy Anti-Cheat runtime in Heroic’s Wine Extensions tab before your first launch
- Party invites need the separate EOS overlay, enabled per-game in Heroic
- The old manual .so file copy is now a fallback fix, not a required step
- Steam Deck setup is identical to desktop Linux, just installed through Discover
- ProtonDB is the fastest place to check current compatibility after a game update
Frequently asked questions
Does Fall Guys work on Linux without Steam?
Yes. Fall Guys is Epic-exclusive and free, so most Linux players install it through Heroic Games Launcher rather than Steam, which no longer sells new copies of the game at all.
Why can’t I join my friend’s Fall Guys party on Linux?
Party invites need the Epic Online Services overlay installed and enabled separately from the base game. Check Heroic’s Advanced settings and the game’s own three-dot menu.
Do I need Steam installed to play Fall Guys on Linux?
No. Heroic Games Launcher handles the Epic Games side entirely on its own. Steam is only relevant if you already own a legacy copy from before Fall Guys left the storefront.
What is GE-Proton and do I need it for Fall Guys?
GE-Proton is a community build of Proton with early anti-cheat and driver fixes. Fall Guys generally needs a recent GE-Proton build rather than Valve’s stock Proton to run reliably.
Can I play Fall Guys on Steam Deck?
Yes, using the same Heroic Games Launcher setup as any other Linux install. Install Heroic through Discover in Desktop Mode, then follow the same Proton and Easy Anti-Cheat steps.
Why did Fall Guys stop working after a game update?
Anti-cheat patches occasionally reset the EAC runtime toggle or move files the manual fix relies on. Re-check that toggle first before redoing the full setup from scratch.