Making them available under a Creative Commons license, Valve said: “Hello! Good news for all the tinkerers, modders, accessory manufacturers, or folks who just want to 3D print a Steam Deck to see how it feels. “Today we’re making the CAD files for the external shell (surface topology) of Steam Deck available for download under a Creative Commons license. This includes an STP model, STL model, and drawings (DWG) for reference.” It’s an interesting commercial decision and one that contrasts sharply with Sony’s approach, which has cracked down on third-party vendors selling replacement covers for its PS5 console so we can only buy its officially-licensed ones. By voluntarily giving the CAD files away, it looks as though Valve isn’t as concerned with such competition and has publicly stated: “we’re looking forward to seeing what the community creates!” If you happen to have a 3D printer (or just like looking at snazzy diagrams), you can download the files from GitLab. ICYMI, Epic’s battle royale Fortnite will not be supported on Valve’s Steam Deck. As Victoria explained at the time, Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, was asked if there were “any plans to update [Fortnite] to make Proton/Wine be compatible with EAC and BattleEye anti-cheat on Linux?”. Sweeney replied with a swift no, but said there is a “big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck”. When asked as to why Fortnite would not be getting an update to make it compatible with Proton (a compatibility layer for Microsoft Windows games to run on Linux-based operating systems, such as the Steam Deck), Sweeney explained: “We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.”
