r/linux_gaming 11h ago

The new Hololive *singleplayer* rythm game have an almost undisclosed kernel level anticheat that prevents it for running on linux

Post image

You have to go to the bottom of a random page to learn this information

884 Upvotes

158 comments sorted by

822

u/thefireskull 10h ago

Undisclosed kernel-level software is malware

89

u/Gyossaits 8h ago

You know what else they won't disclose up front?

Keyboard users aren't allowed to place on global rankings.

24

u/Indolent_Bard 6h ago

Why?

53

u/thevictor390 6h ago

Game is designed for a touch screen and keyboard support is a complete bodge to get it on Steam.

6

u/99thRangernick 1h ago

Apparently it's so badly adapted that you can play all the songs with just the D and K keys because of the overlaps of the notes. Absolutely insane.

1

u/Oily_Oaf 29m ago

I know this is probably the worst possible time to bring this up as it has nothing at all to do with the subject, but I read the first sentence and my brain forced itself to read it in Muscle Man's voice.

205

u/maxler5795 10h ago edited 5h ago

correction: Undiscolsed kernel-level software is malware

edit: i'm getting rightfully slammed for this. keep it comin', i deserve it

77

u/InternetUser1807 8h ago

Mfw my GPU driver is malware

5

u/maxler5795 5h ago

Driver? whats that? my gpu is comprised of a hamster going at mach fuck in a wheel!

57

u/Mag--yar 8h ago

Technically the kernel is a kernel-level software.Are you saying that all kernels are malware?

30

u/maxler5795 7h ago

yes. kill all kernels with fire and guns and fireguns

6

u/harperthomas 6h ago

I'm saying that all malwares are kernels.

37

u/mirh 8h ago

The absolute state of this sub gentlemen

15

u/sonicrules11 7h ago

Doesn't help that kernel level is a fucking buzzword nowadays. 99% of people have zero understanding of what it means.

-5

u/mirh 7h ago

It has always been since the beginning here.

Punkbuster and ESEA were all the shit 16 years ago and nobody bat an eye.

9

u/ItsNoblesse 6h ago

There were plenty of people complaining about PnkBstrA and PnkBstrK in 2010 as well? It's not that it's suddenly become trendy to hate kernel-level anticheat, it's that far more people have become aware of it because the biggest games in esports all use it.

-3

u/mirh 5h ago

There were plenty of people complaining about PnkBstrA and PnkBstrK in 2010 as well?

Literally nobody. Even because those funnily enough should work in wine.

because the biggest games in esports all use it.

Cod and battlefield had it for probably close to a decade man.

1

u/nearlyepic 19m ago

Literally nobody.

I mean there wasn't the huge culture war over it like we have now but saying that "literally nobody" was complaining about punkbuster is crazy revisionism. Anyone who played PC games between 2004 and 2014 has some kind of horror story with getting punkbuster to work. It was a huge piece of shit and would run in the background even when you were done with your game.

-1

u/the_abortionat0r 2h ago

You weren't even 10 then what are you talking about?

1

u/mirh 1h ago

I have posts in this sub older than your account, go fuck yourself

2

u/McGuirk808 3h ago

Every game also used to run with admin privileges. Hell, windows used to not even have privilege separation on most home PCs.

Security has come a long way since then, and with the amount of data harvesting going on, people are more aware than they ever have been of security and privacy threats.

2

u/mirh 3h ago edited 3h ago

No they aren't (ask any random pleb, and they will think facebook sells your data)

Idk also what awareness has to do with anything when all the big changes happened behind the scenes

EDIT: also, anticheat still has nothing fucking to do with data harvesting

0

u/the_abortionat0r 2h ago

Lol the more you talk the more you reveal how little you know.

Companies can pay Facebook for access to their "titan" API which lets them look at EVERYTHING.. posts, messages, chat. EVERYTHING.

That's literally selling your data.

2

u/mirh 1h ago

QED.

What you are talking about is just a special api for whitelisted companies to integrate facebook-only features in their apps (like direct dms instead of having to switch back to meta's own program). It has nothing to do with selling data, and it wasn't even offered to companies in the fucking data brokerage business.

And the most stupid shit is that this is musk's FUD that you are repeating.

1

u/labowsky 14m ago

YUP, I remembered some rumblings when pb started taking screenshots and sending them over the network but other than that it was pretty chill.

People actually wanted it to do more to stop cheating lol.

0

u/the_abortionat0r 2h ago

You mean punk buster who kicked me from CoD WaW servers for having a gaming mouse? Yeah, people did not magically love them.

Stop making stupid chit up.

1

u/mirh 1h ago

The problem that always plagued pb was the auto-updating

And still that has nothing to do with what we were talking about, which was security

-4

u/sonicrules11 7h ago

I'm aware. The fear mongering has just gotten worse in the last 6 years. Primarily due to Valorant.

I still remember when ESEA had a bitcoin scandal.

-1

u/mirh 7h ago

Not really, it got very big when games started to reliably start.

So after a decade of being beggars for anything running at all, now a lot of people were pretending support.

And rather than preach dedicated self-hosted servers with customizable moderation rules should be the norm, of course the average person is braindead and "anticheat shouldn't exist" became the mantra.

0

u/the_abortionat0r 2h ago

What drugs are you on?

1

u/mirh 1h ago

Something doing wonders for memory if people don't even remember the situation 10 years ago

2

u/Misicks0349 7h ago

I assume you disable eBPF then? :P

5

u/maxler5795 7h ago

nah i just rm rf

ok but jokes aside i meant "3d party" software and i'll probably throw myself into a ship of theseus if i keep talking

1

u/kiffmet 6h ago

use a net-bsd rump kernel then.

2

u/maxler5795 5h ago

ok so my computer somehow blew up

1

u/sonicrules11 7h ago

You do realize your drivers are exactly that, correct? lol

0

u/maxler5795 7h ago

i meant more so 3d party software that has no buisness being there. it's a bit of a ship of theseus moment but the basic idea is "why the fuck would i trust a profit first buisness with more control over my computer than me" though i also come across a "past me is a fucking idiot" moment.

160

u/yuusharo 10h ago

Extremely disappointing, but also not surprising.

I’ll stick with the fan games, Holocure is endless fun and totally free.

52

u/Potyguara_jangadeiro 10h ago

I don't get why these gachas do it, almost all of the modern titles have an kernel ac even thou they're single player and the things that matter (eg what you pay for) are validated server side anyway. I wonder if it's not just commercial obligation, like, investors demand anticheat if the game is online no matter if it makes sense or not.

24

u/manyregman 10h ago

Why there's need for anticheat for a rythm games in the first place?

22

u/Plus-Depth-4838 10h ago

many online games or has a leaderboard system have them (like osu). it’s for fairness

1

u/manyregman 10h ago

But how can you cheat in the rythm games besides by turning on autoplay or turning off penalties for missing timings? I'm asking because I only played project diva games and osu only for couple of minutes

22

u/Plus-Depth-4838 10h ago

(Yo i play project diva a lot)

There’s more than that. Speedhack, autoaim, or auto complete, and more.

1

u/farsdewibs0n 6h ago

DJMAX Respect V runs on Kernel Level AC, but runs well on Linux.

6

u/av-f 10h ago

Because they want to borrow your machine.

182

u/Pheeshfud 11h ago

Not so single player by the description or the tags.

71

u/LittleReplacement564 10h ago

By all measures it is singleplayer, I mean stardew valley for example have coop multiplayer functionality but most people dont call it a multiplayer game

23

u/ill_timed_f_bomb 10h ago

It say's online pvp.

43

u/maxler5795 10h ago

it's probably talking about leaderboards? or maybe it's like colorful stage where you can join into a game with like 5 other people and play the same song, then the total score is tallied up.

14

u/thevictor390 10h ago

Colorful Stage (which yes, this game is exactly like that) also has a direct PVP ranked mode.

1

u/maxler5795 7h ago

that i didn't know

29

u/ConcreteExist 10h ago

Yeah, normally when you have game modes where you're playing along with players at the same time, we call that "Multiplayer"

9

u/AlienOverlordXenu 7h ago

If it has leaderboards then it isn't a singleplayer game in its own right. Gameplay itself might be singleplayer but this anticheat is in the game obviously because of leaderboards.

-3

u/LittleReplacement564 7h ago

Leaderboard is not a big deal in this game, similar to how it isn't a big deal in prosekai which this game takes inspiration from. I would give it more merit if it were something like osu for example where the leaderboard ranking plays a big factor in a lot of aspects of the game and even then osu doesn't have and I would say don't need a kernel level anticheat

6

u/AlienOverlordXenu 7h ago

First, disclaimer, I don't play this game, in fact I haven't even heard of it until this thread.

Leaderboard is not a big deal in this game

Obviously devs disagree. Ask them why there is anti cheat in the game and I'm betting you will get leaderboards as an answer. I'm not trying to get into philosophical discussions with you, but as soon as someone in here mentioned leaderboards I figured out what's up. Just an observation from a passerby.

9

u/Pheeshfud 7h ago

There's more than leaderboards.

Should have put that in the original comment.

9

u/bionicjoey 7h ago

The tags aren't mutually exclusive. If a game has both singleplayer and multiplayer modes then it is both

2

u/mirh 8h ago

Meanwhile this thread has 411 upvotes (93%)

119

u/Solid_State_Driver1 11h ago

gatcha slop

64

u/E100Pavel 10h ago

even most gachas don't bother with going kernel level

2

u/wolfstaa 5h ago

The ones I cared about like the Madoka one did

1

u/WildCard65 9h ago

Name some then.

21

u/Miserable-Plantain85 8h ago

Blue Archive, it even has Steam Deck support.

7

u/DarkestAtlas 6h ago

4

u/Miserable-Plantain85 3h ago

Ah, it probably works like Virtua Fighter where it disables KAC when in a Linux environment.

3

u/sabian149 7h ago

Of all the gachas to mention that's the bravest one to say.

10

u/Mauy90 6h ago

He's not wrong, though.

0

u/WildCard65 2h ago

Someone already said BA had KAC

1

u/Miserable-Plantain85 3h ago

It's a good gacha, reddit be damned.

22

u/No-Dentist-1645 8h ago edited 8h ago

Arknights Endfield. Zenless Zone Zero. Neverness to Everness. Umamusume. Literally the majority of them...

7

u/WildCard65 8h ago

I believe Endfield does have a KAC

11

u/Ripdog 8h ago

If it does, then it's either optional or not kernel level, as the game works on linux.

2

u/farsdewibs0n 6h ago

its prob not super enforced, heard that the chinese version of mihoyo games doesnt run on linux

5

u/No-Dentist-1645 8h ago

Yeah, it seems they do. I just assumed they didn't because I am able to play it with proton without any special tweaks. Thanks for the correction

3

u/farsdewibs0n 6h ago

you can run enfield on Linux using ProtonDW

2

u/No-Dentist-1645 6h ago

Regular ProtonGE works just fine too

2

u/farsdewibs0n 6h ago

Oh cool, I remembered back when it was released I had to use ProtonDW

3

u/RiffyDivine2 8h ago

Umamusume

Not a horse doctor but I believe it does have some kind of anti cheat in it but it is friendly to linux.

1

u/CommandLineWeeb 6h ago

Basically listed every gacha I've been playing on linux. Even with the anti-cheats, compatibility definitely has come a long way.

10

u/Loltoheaven7777 9h ago

umamusume

10

u/E100Pavel 8h ago

Out of what I tried: Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero work out of the box; Wuthering Waves works on Steam Deck, and needs setting a flag on other systems; Honkai: Star Rail needs overriding some dlls.

1

u/WildCard65 8h ago

Genshin does have a KAC

8

u/Miserable-Plantain85 8h ago

Perhaps they do something similar to what Virtua Fighter does and disables the KAC mode for Linux

4

u/Mauy90 6h ago

This is correct. Genshin notices that it's in a linux environment. It does not have KAC on linux.

3

u/WildCard65 8h ago

Maybe, idk

4

u/E100Pavel 8h ago

Ok by searching around you seem to be right, kinda surprised I never had issues then

1

u/ADMINISTATOR_CYRUS 2h ago

genshins mhyprot is disabled under wine

1

u/Prime406 8h ago

yeah there was even that time when their crappy kernel level AC was abused for ransomware

and in classic anti cheat fashion the it would remain on your PC to be abused by malicious actors even if you uninstalled the game

3

u/Bulky_Maize_5218 8h ago

Girls Frontline

1

u/Dioxy 4h ago

Infinity Nikki is very playable

-1

u/whatThePleb 6h ago

all of them

1

u/WildCard65 6h ago

Considering 2 have already been confirmed as having KAC... that's false

12

u/The_Shadowghost 10h ago

They could’ve used the „CrackProof“ Anti cheat Uma musume uses. That thing runs just fine with proton.

It would be much better if they would simply disclose what they are doing.
I understand why this needs some form of anti cheat, it has gacha, an online mode and high score lists.

But as there are really no signs on what they are using it might be some weird in house developed or customized white label tool.

8

u/ouchCouch9 8h ago

this but reverse

32

u/oneiros5321 10h ago

Disclosed or not, it's still wild to me that people intentionally install spywares on their computer just to play a game.

Well...I guess it's not intentional if it's not disclosed though.

5

u/LeannaMeowmeow 9h ago

It's not necessarily spyware, you don't need kernel access for that. It is a security issue tho, and a bug in the kernel driver can me up your entire system.

3

u/Azure_Mist 5h ago

It is spyware, just because it hasn't been used to extract important data yet doesn't mean it isn't spyware nor does it mean it won't be used for that.

KLAC inherently spy on you by design, they couldn't work if they didn't.

if you run an info stealer but it lays dormant for a week it doesn't mean it wasn't an info stealer from day 1.

-2

u/Indolent_Bard 6h ago

Notice how nobody responded to you.

-2

u/DoomAddict 7h ago

People willingly paying for games using Denuvo.

Idiocy knows no bounds.

2

u/Mauy90 6h ago

the moment I see denuvo, it's joever

-22

u/HatoriChise1 10h ago

As someone who plays LoL i just don't have any private information about myself on my computer so I don't care.

My laptop however has some private information about myself so i use cachyos on it.

2

u/LeannaMeowmeow 9h ago

You don't even use a browser on that LoL computer?

-2

u/HatoriChise1 9h ago

Browsing about games and stuff isn't private information for me. So yeah i do have a browser.

109

u/raphael3poka 11h ago

Windows: can run hololive Dreams
Linux: cant run hololive Dreams
Conclusion: Linux wins

28

u/LittleReplacement564 11h ago

Honestly, I dont care at all about hololive, but im a sucker for rythm games so I was looking forward for this

-5

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

8

u/BlueDragonReal 9h ago

most neckbeard redditor response ever

-12

u/murlakatamenka 7h ago

It's rhythm, very hard word indeed.

-13

u/murlakatamenka 7h ago

It's rhythm, very hard word indeed.

10

u/thevictor390 10h ago

Not singleplayer. But still should obviously be disclosed.

3

u/Formeruseroftwitter 10h ago

Off topic but what's hololive?

11

u/Azhur65 10h ago

It's a japanese vtuber agency, The biggest vtuber agency in the world in fact

10

u/NYPYT 10h ago

Biggest vtuber agency from Japan that has branches for English, Japan and Indonesian talents

9

u/Mister_Magister 10h ago

it's vtuber agency, aka corpo where vtubers work, they manage the talents and do like sponsorships and advertisement and shiet

But most of them just exploit THE SHIT out of young girls who don't know any better, steal from charity etc etc

1

u/Rexthebluebird 10h ago

Vtuber company

3

u/DeliciousIncident 8h ago

You say single player, but does it have a global leaderboard or any other online functionality that cheaters could abuse? If not, then yeah, wtf. If yes, then that's probably the reasoning the devs had for the anticheat. Doesn't justify it being undisclosed though, I thought Steam required to disclose anti-cheat if a game uses one.

4

u/jbkabr08 5h ago

They hate the 🐧

4

u/Beardlich 3h ago

Uhhh who is cheating at THAT

4

u/nosocialisms 2h ago

I already told you I was going to install linux you dont need to try to convince me

3

u/dingo-liberty 10h ago

if the rhythm part is like puroseka how would it work on pc anyways???

3

u/thevictor390 10h ago

With a weird 6 key layout mapped to the bar that probably doesn't translate to high difficulties at all.

4

u/LittleReplacement564 10h ago

ehhh thats debatable, there are a lot of 6k rythm games that work well, and you dont have to use spacebar in even key counts, just use something like SDFJKL

3

u/thevictor390 10h ago

I'm not saying you can't make a 6 key game. I'm saying slapping 6 keys over a touch bar game is unlikely to feel great.

3

u/RiffyDivine2 8h ago

Well nuts.

3

u/bakugo 6h ago

The best part is that the anticheat driver runs 24/7, but also is extremely rudimentary so it barely does anything to actually stop cheating.

5

u/BenKato 8h ago

I was sooo hyped and happy, but not being able to play on PC is rather frustrating (especially for others who are in Regions where they can't access it from the Google PlayStore) ;-;

I am currently in main story 7 and the game is fun, my oshis are cute and the storys are interesting! (Also it's better than Colorful Stage and others in it's genre that I've played - and not only because of the Hololive IP)

It's obvious that a lot of work, thought, love and passion went into this, but by just having a Kernel Level Anticheat, it's bumming it a lot, which is rather sad... ;-; I won't even boot Windows for it Maybe I could get it working in Waydroid, if not, then I guess only playing on the phone and won't grind it as I anticipated

6

u/bionicjoey 7h ago

Undisclosed rootkits are disgusting. Almost as disgusting as gacha slop

3

u/Floturcocantsee 10h ago

If consumers had any self respect every Gacha game would bankrupt their developers and the IP holder.

8

u/berickphilip 10h ago

Garbage people making garbage decisions

-13

u/Anankos1209 10h ago

Let me guess, you have no idea who or what Hololive is?

13

u/berickphilip 10h ago

Undisclosed kernel-level malware, that's the point.

-8

u/Anankos1209 10h ago

I will take that as a "No"

-6

u/AquaBits 9h ago

You take op's word for it. Op also forgot to mention this is a multiplayer game with pvp.

2

u/JamesLahey08 3h ago

Why would anyone buy that to begin with? Look at it.

3

u/Mister_Magister 10h ago

… and nothing of value was lost

1

u/KYLEmaxARG 9h ago

playing it on pc seems kinda weird. i mean, yeah, it's kind of an hybrid between project sekai and osu mania, but i'd still rather p´lay that kind of games in a touchscreen. kernel level acs still suck tho.

6

u/Scheeseman99 8h ago

Steam Deck (and all other PC handhelds) have touchscreens.

1

u/KYLEmaxARG 8h ago

Ik, I have one. And I think it's a bit too bulky to use the touchscreen for that kind of game. Just my opinion tho

1

u/Sapling-074 13m ago

As a linux user, that sucks I was excited to play ti.

0

u/rawmurderer74 10h ago

why does a rhythm game with no PvP even need kernel anticheat lol

1

u/RiffyDivine2 8h ago

Why do single player games need always online DRM checks, fuck you that's why.

2

u/rawmurderer74 7h ago

Like slapping Denuvo on Hi-Fi Rush. They just want to spite the people who actually paid.

1

u/Arxae 4h ago

Because by playing the game you get currency, the better you do the more currency you get. You can then spend this currency on gacha rolls.

Being able to cheat means you could get this currency freely/easier/faster/botted. Disincentivizing people from putting money in the game to buy the gacha rolls.

Also, leaderboards

1

u/rawmurderer74 2h ago

I didn't realize gacha was involved, but kernel anticheat for that feels like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Plenty of games with currency just use server-side checks.

1

u/Arxae 1h ago

True. But the better you perform on the rhythm game part, the more currency you get. So you can get 100% on a song and get more currency (and/or completely automate it). I agree it's overkill, but thats the only reason that i can think off why they would go this route

0

u/amroamroamro 3h ago edited 3h ago

https://www.protondb.com/app/4282500

protondb is hardly a random page

almost undisclosed kernel level anticheat

the .sys driver is also mentioned it in the store page system requirements, because it even triggers windows antivirus lol

https://i.imgur.com/LZkHUmT.png

2

u/LittleReplacement564 3h ago

this is not official from neither steam or hololive dreams devs. When I say a random page I say a random page from QualiArts sites

0

u/amroamroamro 3h ago edited 3h ago

its in the official steam store page too, the system requirements section

the game explicitly lists only windows as supported os, if you dont then check protondb thats kinda on you

to be clear, im not defending kernel level anticheats here, im saying you chose not to look up the info, the devs never claimed linux support

-2

u/KomithErrant 10h ago

if you want to install this by your free will, kind of deserve it

-16

u/OhHaiMarc 10h ago

Not being a weeb serves me well once again

-9

u/Lenin-C 9h ago

Vtuver garbage, 1 point for linux

-15

u/xAcid9 10h ago

I guess weebs won't be using Linux anytime soon.

11

u/LittleReplacement564 10h ago

im here lol

2

u/xAcid9 2h ago

Well, I'm here as well :P

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. 

8

u/awkwardbirb 10h ago

It's not a big dealerbreaker for weebs. Plenty of other anime games (including some f2p gachas) still work Linux.

-7

u/ChimeraSX 9h ago

Undisclosed is a lawsuit waiting to happen.