Easy Anti-Cheat issues locked New World players out this week
Make sure your Steam is updated
Over the last few days, many New World players have been struggling to get into Amazon's popular MMORPG. Some reported being booted to menu after queuing, while others haven't been able to open the game at all. Last night, the devs suggested it was a problem with Easy Anti-Cheat, and offered a workaround so folks could get back on the grind. As it turns out, other games that use EAC have seen similar issues, and now Steam has rolled back a client update to try and fix them.
A number of threads on the New World forums have reports from players stuck in a loop trying to get into servers, or simply not being able to launch the game. Last night, Amazon Games suggested reinstalling Easy Anti-Cheat, or verifying your game files through Steam as a fix.
But it wasn't just New World facing these issues. The same problems were being reported by players trying to open a bunch of other EAC games on Steam, including Apex Legends, Rust, Fall Guys, and Dead By Daylight. Some encountered a pop-up when trying to launch that said Easy Anti-Cheat doesn't trust their files, while others were unable to go online once the game was open.
Turns out, EAC was working a bit too hard thanks to a recent Steam client update. Last night, Steam rolled back a patch to fix some EAC issues, which seems to have worked. I managed to open Apex Legends myself through Steam this morning.
So, if EAC is giving you trouble, first make sure your Steam is updated. If you're still struggling after that, some New World players say Amazon's workaround works, while others suggest running the EAC.exe file by itself. Over on the Apex subreddit, players suggest a similar fix running the Easy Anti-Cheat launcher as administrator.