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You Can Play Over 2,600 Windows Games on Linux Via Steam Play (tomshardware.com)

Posted by msmash on from the growing-synergy dept.

At the end of August, Valve announced a new version of Steam Play for Linux that included Proton, a WINE fork that made many Windows games, including more recent ones ,such as Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3 and Dishonored, playable on Linux. Just two months later, ProtonDB says there are over 2,600 Windows games that users can play on Linux, and the number is rapidly growing daily. From a report: When Valve Software launched Steam Play with Proton, it made it easier for gamers to play Windows games that hadn't yet been ported to Linux with the click of a button. Not all games may run perfectly on Linux, but that's also often the case with Windows 10, which can not play older games as well as previous versions of Windows did, even under Compatibility Mode. In only two months, the database of games that work with Proton has increased to over 2,600 -- more than half of the 5,000 Linux-native games that can be obtained through the Steam store.

16 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft should sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Steam is illegally stealing Windows and letting cheap freeloading Linux losers play Microsoft's games! They should sue!

  2. But... by eneville · · Score: 2

    Linux already has solitaire and minesweeper.

    --
    Why UNIX?
    1. Re:But... by higuita · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nethack! and Dwarf fortress!

      two of the best games ever made and run perfectly in linux

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      Higuita
  3. Not the right metric. by Holi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not a fair metric when 90% are crappy clones of each other.

    Better metric would be, how many games that I want to play work on Steam on Linux, I promise you the number is far, far lower then the Hackers Quarterly.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    1. Re:Not the right metric. by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The number is much higher than the previous status quo. Remember the bad old days of Loki Games? That was the late '90's, so some of the younger readers might not have been born then. I bought several of their titles back then. They did a Linux convention in Denver in '99 and their CEO was complaining that it took three engineers three days to figure out how to set up a multi-display X11 setup for a flight simulator. They finally threw in the towel a short time later.

      Back then, the prognosis for commercial games on Linux was "Whoever wants to port them and Loki." There weren't many who would port them -- Id Software for some of the quake titles are the only ones I can think of. And sure, there were some other options -- you could install mame and play some emulated coin-op and console games. There were some open source ones, graphical and not. There was still a pretty healthy Xtrek community back then. But if you wanted a machine to play games on, you installed windows. Funnily, OSX was in pretty much the same boat as Linux. A few more publishers decided to port to them. But you didn't really buy a Mac to play games anyway. And they were really terrible at pushing 3D. The early aluminum tower would cook the video card to death over the course of a couple of months if you actually tried to.

      Fast forward to today, you can confidently install steam on Linux and reasonably expect a new title to just work. Take No Man's Sky. Good example, fairly recent game, pretty unique, works great. Borderlands 2, Stellaris, Factorio, even the old Railroad Tycoon 2 work great, for just a random selection that I have installed on my laptop. About the only thing I've tried installing that absolutely didn't want to work was the 64 bit version of Skyrim.

      And a lot of the titles that didn't work before work great with wine. I used to run the 32 bit Skyrim that way. Wine will also run Wow and Eve online flawlessly, again a huge step up from the bad old days.

      I still need to test it with the HTC Vive VR and my most commonly played titles for that. If that works even remotely well, I could consider formatting Windows 10 off my gaming system and installing Linux instead. That would have been impossible before now.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    2. Re:Not the right metric. by TheSunborn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Now I don't know what kind of games YOU want to play. I guess there might be an issue with missing games if you like 3d shooters since a lot of these seems to be missing.

      But all the games I personally want to play, such as XCOM2, Civilization 5 and 6, Darkest dungeon, Thea, Total war: Warhammer, Cities: Skylies and rim world and Factorio are available.

      Only game I sometimes miss are "Endless space 2" and there are repports that it does run perfectly on Wine but i have not tested that.

    3. Re:Not the right metric. by Calydor · · Score: 2

      While things are better, your post also points out a really big problem: An AAA title with the kind of hype Skyrim had doesn't work, at least not if you want to run the 64 bit version. Once people hear about that, and hear that the games have a 100% chance of working in Windows ... which system are they going to choose? Going with Linux is all well and good right until you need to have a Windows machine ANYWAY for the one game you want to play with or at the same time as your friends.

      And if you're booting into Windows anyway for that game, may as well continue doing so for other games to avoid breaking up your workflow all the time.

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      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    4. Re:Not the right metric. by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Going with Linux is all well and good right until you need to have a Windows machine ANYWAY for the one game you want to play with or at the same time as your friends.

      This. For solo games I got a backlog of games I could play and most games work eventually and in the end it doesn't affect anyone other than myself. But when my friends swoon over some new AAA game then I have to join in on that. Heck, I'm getting a PS4 almost just to play Red Dead Redemption 2.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. Re:While I appreciate by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

    i think the long-term play here is making the 'steam box' a viable thing from a hardware perspective. The more triple-A games that run natively in linux, the better chances a valve branded box running their customized distro has at being a going concern.

  5. Re:While I appreciate by wed128 · · Score: 2

    There are lots of people who prefer linux to windows, but don't really have a problem with proprietary software.

  6. Re:While I appreciate by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 2

    It's not just about proprietary software. The *nix environment is better at doing a lot of tasks than windows. My primary work desktop (What all our software development is done on) is linux. We also have a windows box for doing Ms office and outlook. My primary home desktop would be Linux if I could play the games I want to play on Linux.

    The irony is that Open source software is so convenient, that it runs perfectly good on Windows, allowing me to do everything I want (work and games) on one machine. If open source software did not work so well on windows, I might actually have to make a hard choice between windows and linux, or just run 2 machines

    The same cannot be said of the proprietary software that I use (e.g. some games, and MS Office). Those do not run well on platforms other than windows, so using windows is more convenient. But these problems are not a result license (i.e. that it is proprietary). I don't have a problem paying for software. I pay for some games on linux. I pay for plex (which runs on all major platforms).

    I don't use linux because it's free. I use it because it is better at doing lots of things, and the list of things it is worse at is shrinking every day.

  7. Actual Proton Page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those that want to look at the ProtonDB site.

    https://www.protondb.com/

  8. Re: Linux Desktop is DEAD by Stormwatch · · Score: 2

    Random breakages, strange error messages, complicated multistep fixes.

    That's the typical Windows 10 experience.

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    Circumcision is child abuse.
  9. Re:Linux Desktop is DEAD by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > Ah yes, the small niche market of 99% of business desktops and the vast majority of home PCs.

    So what? I probably wouldn't be satisfied with ANY of your other consumer choices either. You probably have no taste what so ever.

    The beautiful thing about a free market is that I don't have to be held hostage by your stupid choices.

    Although your FUD is simply out of date. Microsoft is entirely optional these days.

    You may even find the non-WinDOS games on Steam to your liking.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  10. Re:While I appreciate by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    > Strawmen convention much? Linux is a Unixy OS MacOS is Unix.

    That's utter bullshit. What spec that MacOS conforms to is far too restricted and low level to be of any practical value.

    MacOS is Unix certified. You might not like that but first read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , then go argue with the people who certified it.

    Macs underneath are alien to anyone that's worked with real Unixen. Far more alien than Linux.

    Funny, but the Unix people I deal with have no problem that you claim exists. And if you are so pissed that MaxOS is Unix certified, then why don't you work to decertify it.

    What you are doing is making a stereotyped meme of Mac Users. Whatever, but Bullshit it aint.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  11. A surprisingly high number of good games by mykro76 · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those labouring under the assumption that these counts are inflated with crappy games, I collected some stats on the 4500 best games on Steam. These are the ones that Steam flags as "Very Positive" or "Overwhelmingly Positive" based on aggregated reviews. Of those, 1500 are supported natively on Linux and another 1500 are playable without much trouble in Proton. It's also become clear that most of the reports being submitted to ProtonDB are for the better, well-known games. Hardly anyone is submitting reports on the crappy shovelware games.