Now that 2018 is coming to a close, let’s go over what’s happened this year. It’s been incredibly interesting to follow, things haven’t been this lively for some time. Note: As this is a roundup of sorts, multiple links will go back to our articles talking about them.
The game porting company Feral Interactive have been busy this year, as they’ve released all these for Linux:
- Total War: Warhammer II
- XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - Tactical Legacy Pack
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
Additionally, they also put out their open source GameMode tool to help you get the most performance, although it’s still rather limited in scope right now. Looks like it’s still being worked on too, with “mdiluz” who left Feral Interactive for Unity working on their own fork to bring new features along with a Unity plugin.
Side-note: Marc "mdiluz" recently started a "side-gig" working on Linux tooling, thanks to a little help from Valve. Seems the first focus is GameMode mentioned above.
Feral Interactive have also been teasing a lot in the past few months. We now know that these confirmed titles will also be ported and officially supported on Linux in 2019:
I’m also hopeful we will see Feral Interactive team up with IO once again to bring HITMAN 2 officially to Linux, make it so! Quite a small list so far but a pretty strong one, let’s hope they have more in store for us.
Aspyr Media, another game porting company and publisher helped InnerSpace release and also finally managed to get out the cross-platform online patch for the Linux version of Civilization VI after much delay. Apart from that, they’ve been rather quiet for releases this year.
Virtual Programming released MXGP3 - The Official Motocross Videogame, while also teasing that Gravel is coming to Linux. A Hat in Time also appeared on their website to indicate a Linux port is coming, although it quickly vanished (the second time this has happened). Sadly, though the ARMA 3 experimental Linux port that Virtual Programming teamed up with Bohemia for was put on ice (for now) with no further updates.
Valve also did something that was quite unexpected with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive going free to play with a Battle Royale mode (thoughts here). That’s going to keep me entertained for some time! We were missing out on such a game for a while, so hopefully it keeps CS:GO strong.
Additionally, even though I absolutely love the gameplay in Valve’s card game Artifact (thoughts here), it seems the monetization model has caused a lot of players to look elsewhere. What started off as a strong start for it at around sixty thousand players has dropped like a rock. I fully expect them to make some changes to this. Even though a drop-off was expected, it’s a lot more dramatic than I thought and I imagine it has alarmed Valve somewhat. They say they’re “in this for the long haul” and they’ve been updating it with new features, so it will be interesting to see how they can turn it around.
We also had a few games (sadly) drop Linux support across this year. Notable titles including Rust, Phoenix Point and the aforementioned ARMA 3 Linux port experiment, although the Rust developers still keep the Linux version up to date with each new update and it may eventually see full Linux support again when Unity issues are ironed out.
Not forgetting the considerable amount of good indie games (and some a little bigger) that released for Linux this year! Honestly, I could sit here all day listing off great games released in full for Linux in 2018. I can’t list them all (obviously), but as a reminder of just how good a year it was, here’s a small slice in no particular order:
BATTLETECH
CrossCode
Cultist Simulator
Dead Cells
EVERSPACE
EXAPUNKS
Forsaken Remastered
Horizon Chase Turbo
Iconoclasts
Megaquarium
Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
Overload
Parkitect
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
RUINER
RimWorld
State of Mind
Surviving Mars
Two Point Hospital
Wizard of Legend
That’s quite a varied and impressive selection on offer. Through 2019, there will no doubt be plenty of surprises. We’re aware of a few and we’ve already tested a couple secrets, it’s going to be fun. Do let us know in the comments what Linux releases you're looking forward to in 2019! Personally, I'm quite excited about Insurgency: Sandstorm.
Valve’s Steam Play
By far the biggest news this year—Steam Play! Valve surprised everyone by announcing their own special fork of Wine named Proton, this includes DXVK which kicks over D3D11 and D3D10 into Vulkan (which Valve funded). Allowing many more games to be played on Linux easily through the Steam client, that don’t actually support Linux.
It was something users had asked Valve to do for a long time and I’m still surprised even now many months later that it happened. Linux as a gaming platform couldn’t noticeably grow from indies and a tiny trickle of AAA releases alone, something like this was needed to bridge the gap. Especially helpful to those on the fence about dual booting or fully switching to Linux, not instantly losing access to a vast Steam library makes it a lot more enticing.
Watching Steam Play evolve with each new release has been interesting, although it remains to be seen how far Valve will take it. Valve have stated multiple times now, that they will eventually have something on the Steam store directly to show Steam Play supported titles. I’m very curious how they plan to do this!
Seeing so many people enjoying games they previously wouldn’t have picked up, is quite interesting. I picked up DOOM to test it out myself and I’ve enjoyed it greatly.
The elephant in the room though, 2019 will be interesting to see how many developers decide to shy away from Linux support in favour of telling users to try Steam Play. I imagine a few, but I don’t think it will be anywhere near as drastic as some think.
Personally, I will still be firmly waiting a good year or so before buying anything for Steam Play to rule out a properly supported Linux version. I don’t care how a Linux version is done, I’m long past caring about such specific details. Does it run and run well and is it supported? That matters to me more than anything.
Battle of the stores
Previous years had been quite quiet when it came to stores fighting each other for the crown. It’s like a bunch suddenly woke up from a long sleep in 2018, with multiple stores making waves.
The Epic Store
Epic Games are going to be one watch next year. They’re going to give Valve some tough competition, although probably not right away but over time I think they will easily grow into a huge store thanks to the success of Fortnite.
Even with their popularity, Epic still faces an uphill battle like all other newcomer stores. Although, they’ve already managed to get some exclusive games, developers have pushed back or cancelled their Steam releases completely for it too so it’s going to make things interesting.
In their initial announcement, they did say it would come to “other open platforms”, which presumably means Linux when you see this Twitter post from the founder of Epic Games. I don’t think you would tease like that, unless the Epic Store was going to release on Linux too.
Epic are also opening up all their cross-platform online services, Linux again wasn’t mentioned specifically. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work on Linux we will have to wait and see on that on. We did reach out to Epic about it, to no reply.
I think it’s going to make some big waves across the industry, you don’t have to believe me right now though but I firmly expect it to make a dent in Valve.
Discord Store
Discord also opened up their own store this year, with a recently announced revenue split of 90% for developers and only 10% for Discord. While I’m not entirely sure how big a splash their store will make, they already have a pretty large user-base thanks to the chat client.
They also confirmed that their store will in fact support Linux, although they’re not giving a date yet.
Now, onto GamingOnLinux itself (the website—duh)
Across the year, myself and contributors together put out the most articles in a single year since we began doing this (well above two thousand). Some big, some small but the point is it’s another sign of just how interesting things are.
Not that it’s really much of an indicator, but we seem to have done well this year across various social networks too. There’s been a lot of chatter, a lot of new followers and it’s looking good. Our Twitter account for example, went from 7.6K to over 10.3K which is the biggest increase in a single year we’ve ever seen. Our Mastodon account is also sitting pretty at well over 2K followers too, which isn’t bad at all considering it’s still a newbie. Even our Twitch account for livestreams is doing well, with over 600 new followers this year—we’re hoping they all continue growing nicely as they are.
As far as I’m concerned, if things continue the same we’re solid for many years to come. Good thing too, we all love doing this. We passed the nine year mark in July!
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If you wish to support the effort, you can find out the various ways to do so on this dedicated page any time.
Whatever you’re doing this holiday season, have a good one and all the best to you. Thank you for the support, the comments, the correction reports on my terrible grammar, the laughs in the livestreams and more. Thanks for the fun, here’s to a fantastic 2019.
Personal note: I will be completely away from December 24th to December 26th and again on December 31st for some rest and relaxation to prepare for another year.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
too soon?
Last edited by mylka on 19 December 2018 at 10:31 pm UTC
Quoting: Nevertheless…until (to be effective) the Linux community of 2018 (us) is a numerical minority amongst Linux users of the future.So, basically, we should grow twice the size +1 user. :D
Quoting: NeverthelessI guess most of those gamers won't completely share "our" current values and ideals.Well, they have to. :( Otherwise for all intents and purposes they are Windows gamers. Or worse yet, they are deluded Windows users thinking they have "escaped" Windows somehow or have gotten hold of "better Windows than Windows". Surely, these illusions can not last long.
Quoting: NeverthelessHowever, more Linux users will purchase more Proton games and more native indie games, so I hope Linux gaming can grow even further, and Linux friendly devs get to reap what they have sown.Hopefully, but right now all what I see is that some of "our" Linux users' money is getting dispersed (at best) or outright redirected towards Windows titles with all that
QuoteI picked up DOOM to test it out myself and I’ve enjoyed it greatly.stuff.
Quoting: NeverthelessI think it's a good idea to keep on purchasing native games of course!Yeah, me too! ^_^ It is NTNB all the way for me.
Last edited by Alm888 on 21 December 2018 at 6:10 pm UTC
Nevertheless Dec 19, 2018
Quoting: Alm888Quoting: Nevertheless…until (to be effective) the Linux community of 2018 (us) is a numerical minority amongst Linux users of the future.So, basically, we should grow twice the size +1 user. :D
Quoting: NeverthelessI guess most of those gamers won't completely share "our" current values and ideals.Well, they have to. :( Otherwise for all intents and purposes they are Windows gamers. Or worse yet, they are deluded Windows users thinking they have "escaped" Windows somehow or have gotten hold of "better Windows that Windows". Surely, these illusions can not last long.
Quoting: NeverthelessHowever, more Linux users will purchase more Proton games and more native indie games, so I hope Linux gaming can grow even further, and Linux friendly devs get to reap what they have sown.Hopefully, but right now all what I see is that some of "our" Linux users' money is getting dispersed (at best) or outright redirected towards Windows titles with all that
QuoteI picked up DOOM to test it out myself and I’ve enjoyed it greatly.stuff.
Quoting: NeverthelessI think it's a good idea to keep on purchasing native games of course!Yeah, me too! ^_^ It is NTNB all the way for me.
Yes, of course, they will have had a reason to move to Linux, maybe it's privacy, security, technical reasons, maybe MS locked up its walled garden some more... What I mean is, they might just want a trustworthy, solid OS to start their games (and stuff) with. I wouldn't expect them to want to contribute to Linux gaming, FOSS, the Linux community, indy gaming, or whatever.
We want some more mass market to be of significance. If we succeed, we'll get some of it. I just hope we can also shape it a bit into our direction.
Last edited by Nevertheless on 19 December 2018 at 11:04 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestI'm still struggling about making my final opinion about Linux game ports after the changes this year. Sure they deserve a lot of attention, but overall Proton with DXVK are the most important change for me personally. I mean DXVK with the help of Vulkan changed everything. Where we have been dependent before from slow game ports based on OpenGL, we now have something that works really well! Somehow it feels like a year of independence, we now have all the infrastructure available as open source on our side and it gets a lo of attention now. As such I think I changed my opinion about some game ports, yes Linux releases are nice, but now I believe not at cost of waiting months or years for a port with slow performance that we cannot influence at all. Either there should be a native Linux version with Vulkan support like when building with Unity or maybe DXVK should be used as well in game ports.
There were and are ports that use Vulkan. Same as games that use older versions of D3D etc... I'm also not sure what do you mean by slow OpenGL ports... My new pc is not high end per "gaming" terms, but it ran all opengl games just fine, with constant framerates at native resolution.
Quoting: GuestLinux is not alone in this. PC is losing ground as part of a much wider trend.Thank you. I think this is a key point. I think this wasn't just maybe a weak year in Linux gaming, but perhaps in gaming in general. When I look at Windows games of the year in 2018, there isn't too much exciting me there either. I think AAA gaming, which is getting ever more expensive, is having the same effect as blockbuster movies: Sucking all the air, and capital, out of the industry as games get bigger and pricier. And the Switch at the lower end is taking attention and money away since it's quicker and cheaper to develop those titles. I think we're seeing an industry that is in bigger transition than we all think. This "race to the bottom" of all of the Epic and Discord Stores wouldn't be happening if this wasn't a hurting dev industry to some degree.
I'm a space game guy, so my game of 2018 was Helium Rain.
My most anticipated of 2019 is X4.
My most anticipated trend of 2019: I'm fascinated to see how far Valve can take Steam Play. It's hovering around 50% Platinum and Gold compatibility for the top 100 games, how high can they technologically push that number?
Best thing about Linux gaming in 2018 or 2019? GOL!! Thanks to Liam and team, and my best wishes for a happy holiday and restoring rest.
Last edited by iiari on 20 December 2018 at 4:19 am UTC
Quoting: GuestWhile I am willing to believe that there is a trend of PC losing ground to consoles, the article you link isn't really evidence of that, in two ways.Quoting: BeamboomI'm the first to feel sorry for saying so, but to be honest I feel this is one of the weaker years in Linux gaming so far. It feels like we're taken quite a few steps back to the first years of Steam, with mostly indie titles coming our way.Linux is not alone in this. PC is losing ground as part of a much wider trend.
Let's just say it like it is: Without Feral we would have had practically nothing in the pipeline now. Like we did back then.
So this is not something to be too cheerful about. Rather we should worry if the top was already reached.
Maybe Steam Play in fact is the only way forward after all. Forget games developed for our platform, forget ports even, we now need to emulate our way to the bigger games.
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/12/04/the-best-selling-video-games-of-2018/
AAA is now almost exclusively the domain of the PS4, with Nintendo exclusives making up the remainder.
The days of comparing the asymmetric scale of something like Half-Life on PC to something like Halo on the original Xbox are long gone ... or long overdue, depending on your outlook.
First, it could be that PC game sales are less dominated by the few top games, and so while those top games have fewer sales than the top few console games, overall sales on PC could be high. Second, the top games being on consoles now does not mean they weren't also on consoles years ago--it's only a trend if PC sales used to be stronger relative to console sales.
And I mean, the overall trend of number of Steam players is (give or take some rather large Pubg blips) strongly upwards. A quick poke round googling about game sales it looks like PC sales are actually in the same ballpark as total console sales. So for instance
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pc-games-sales-in-2017-are-almost-as-big-all-console-sales-combined/
Edited to add: The real trend appears to be mobile growing to eclipse both PC and consoles. But even there, it's not like PC and console are shrinking; mobile games have just been growing really fast.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 20 December 2018 at 5:23 am UTC
MacGyver88 Dec 20, 2018
I'd like to see a lot of new Vulkan powered games in 2019.
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (was also my most anticipated game for 2018)
- GTA5 (SteamPlay)
- Dark Souls 3 (SteamPlay, still at 1/4 or something like this, not sure if I will ever get past the Abyss Watchers ;))
- Civilization VI
- Life is Strange BtS (though hadn't found much time yet, I'm still at the beginning)
- Assetto Corsa Competizione (SteamPlay)
SteamPlay certainly is a game changer for me. I really hope that linux gamers will get much more visibility. Thus please people: Lets make Linux count and use SteamPlay/Proton at least for the first 2 weeks after purchasing a title!
My most anticipated game for 2019: Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Last edited by jens on 20 December 2018 at 10:44 am UTC
Edgarins29 Dec 20, 2018
TheRiddick Dec 20, 2018
Quoting: LeopardIf Epic Store will be coming to Linux ( which i don't think so ) without a Proton like solution it would mean nothing.
Allot of Unreal based games can be made to run in Linux if the developers want. I think having a Epic Store that can launch its Linux games would be a good start, remember that not even GOG has release GOG Galaxy for Linux yet so for Epic Store to release before GOG would be a statement of commitment.
Not sure if Epic can or would fork Proton for their platform, adding some support for it couldn't possibly hurt.
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