Thanks to some effort from the team behind Lutris (and Wine of course), you can now run the Epic Store quite easily on Linux.
The official Lutris Twitter account posted this yesterday:
Good news! @EpicGames Store is now fully functional under Linux if you use Lutris to install it! No issues observed whatsoever. lutris.net/games/epic-gam… @TimSweeneyEpic will probably like this
What's interesting is that Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, directly replied to their Twitter post to say "Great work!" but even more interestingly they also sent another Tweet with this:
@LutrisGaming please consider applying: unrealengine.com/en-US/megagran…
So while the Epic Store doesn't have a Linux version currently on their roadmap, it seems they are at least willing in some way to support a community effort of getting it running on Linux. Not ideal of course but better than nothing? Considering all the free games the Epic Store are giving out and likely plenty of them will work fine in Wine, this might be quite interesting for some of our readers.
I tested it out briefly and it does indeed work nicely, thanks to Lutris it really is a one-click install:
To my surprise, installing (and actually playing) The Witness which is currently free on the Epic Store, worked fine as well. Honestly, I'm shocked at how easy this all is.
Personally, I still hope that one day Epic Games do bring their store to Linux officially. I would honestly love to play Fortnite properly on Linux, as I'm sure plenty of others would as there's nothing like it available on Linux. There's some that may be slightly similar but nothing really close.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
ElectricPrism Apr 18, 2019
@epic. I want Unreal Tournament 4 self updating on Linux.
You do that and bring a native client and we got a truce.
You do that and bring a native client and we got a truce.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: ElectricPrism@epic. I want Unreal Tournament 4 self updating on Linux.
You do that and bring a native client and we got a truce.
Good luck updating a completely abandoned game :P
5 Likes, Who?
@epic, look at Quake Champions. That's the kind of games we want to play: Violent, fast-paced FPS. Not some gimmicky nonsense for kids.
3 Likes, Who?
QuoteSo while the Epic Store doesn't have a Linux version currently on their roadmap, it seems they are at least willing in some way to support a community effort of getting it running on LinuxIt sounds so like "let's throw some bread crumbs to those annoying pigeons, er, penguins"
After all these years we're still with the leftovers from the Windows world :(
13 Likes, Who?
This is how it has to start, I guess. We were playing games with wine way before Valve decided to support Linux natively. And this showed them there is interest. Then Microsoft did its store thing, and game platforms where looking for alternatives. Without wine we wouldn't have that I guess. So yeah, I think it's a good start that the Epic client is now working properly on Linux via a compatibility layer. Which may lead then to a native client sooner or later, especially as Epic is looking for Linux engineers. And I guess not only for backend stuff.
I know we prefer a proper native support, I do this as well. But being able to play now games, that are known to work well with wine+dxvk (e.g. Metro Exodus), it's at least something.
edit: will we see a community driven project like protondb for games that work with wine/dxvk from the epic store soon, or with this be listed on winehq?
Last edited by Corben on 18 April 2019 at 9:32 am UTC
I know we prefer a proper native support, I do this as well. But being able to play now games, that are known to work well with wine+dxvk (e.g. Metro Exodus), it's at least something.
edit: will we see a community driven project like protondb for games that work with wine/dxvk from the epic store soon, or with this be listed on winehq?
Last edited by Corben on 18 April 2019 at 9:32 am UTC
8 Likes, Who?
Quoting: CorbenThis is how it has to start, I guess. We were playing games with wine way before Valve decided to support Linux natively. And this showed them there is interest. Then Microsoft did its store thing, and game platforms where looking for alternatives. Without wine we wouldn't have that I guess. So yeah, I think it's a good start that the Epic client is now working properly on Linux via a compatibility layer. Which may lead then to a native client sooner or later, especially as Epic is looking for Linux engineers. And I guess not only for backend stuff.Honestly, I think it's crazy how many people turn their noses up at Wine. I've said it before and I will say it again, without Wine letting me play some games on Linux in the early days I simply wouldn't be here today.
I know we prefer a proper native support, I do this as well. But being able to play now games, that are known to work well with wine+dxvk (e.g. Metro Exodus), it's at least something.
edit: will we see a community driven project like protondb for games that work with wine/dxvk from the epic store soon, or with this be listed on winehq?
I now take what I can, where I can. If I can get a game working on Linux, officially or not and have fun with it that's what matters most. The majority really don't care about the little details, they just want things to work.
30 Likes, Who?
Copied my languishing Subnautica save over from my Windows partition, seems to run well, maybe I'll pick it back up again :)
1 Likes, Who?
I applaud the Lutris team for their efforts. However, this is a feature I will not be using for the foreseeable future. The Epic Game Store is so blatantly anti-consumer, it sickens me. I get what they're trying to do: they're trying to make a competitor to Steam and break up Valve's market share. But they are doing this by stepping on every single toe they can see by buying up games and making them exclusive to their store when they weren't before (Metro: Exodus, Satisfactory, etc.).
As a consumer, this irritates me greatly. I want choice, not forced exclusivity. Mr. Sweeney doesn't seem to mind, though. EGS is a very developer-oriented store as this article points out. The consumers are very much second-class citizens at Epic, which quite frankly, would be reason enough for me to ignore EGS completely, even if I weren't using Linux. Articles like this one don't help either. In this one Tim seems to suggest that gamers are ignorant, because we "don't understand" what Epic is doing, which is as we all know, a great way to win over customers.
tl;dr: Epic bad.
As a consumer, this irritates me greatly. I want choice, not forced exclusivity. Mr. Sweeney doesn't seem to mind, though. EGS is a very developer-oriented store as this article points out. The consumers are very much second-class citizens at Epic, which quite frankly, would be reason enough for me to ignore EGS completely, even if I weren't using Linux. Articles like this one don't help either. In this one Tim seems to suggest that gamers are ignorant, because we "don't understand" what Epic is doing, which is as we all know, a great way to win over customers.
tl;dr: Epic bad.
36 Likes, Who?
make sure you get your free copy of WITNESS
and in a few hours TRANSISTOR
i wont give epic my money, but i collect all the free games, like on uplay
and in a few hours TRANSISTOR
i wont give epic my money, but i collect all the free games, like on uplay
7 Likes, Who?
I'm not going to use it, but offering a grant is not fully shabby.
6 Likes, Who?
I don't really care about Epic Games Store, but I really appreciate all the work the team behind Lutris does to turn it into a definitive gaming center app.
11 Likes, Who?
gradyvuckovic Apr 18, 2019
Well, this is absolutely something I was happy to leave on Windows, but on a technical level hats off to the clever folk who figured that out.
Also shame on Epic Games. It's a bloody Electron app, which means 98% of the application is just HTML, CSS and Javascript running via Node and rendered in Chrome. Electron apps that don't feature any platform specific code literally require NO changes to port. Assuming they have some Windows specific code in the application for downloading and installing games to their correct locations, it couldn't be easier to add a simple if(platform=="linux") then add some Linux specific logic to the sections which require that. For the company that created Unreal Engine 4, it couldn't be any easier to port something as simple as that, yet they still can't be bothered to do so.
So no they don't deserve credit for suggesting applying for a grant, assuming they would even give one and that throwaway statement wasn't just designed to give them temporary free positive PR among Linux gamers, they should just offer a Linux version of the store.
Epic is basically saying via their actions that they aren't willing to perform even the most minimal level of effort necessary to support Linux but they're happy for the Linux community to do the work for them. Contrast that against Valve's support.
Last edited by gradyvuckovic on 18 April 2019 at 12:16 pm UTC
Also shame on Epic Games. It's a bloody Electron app, which means 98% of the application is just HTML, CSS and Javascript running via Node and rendered in Chrome. Electron apps that don't feature any platform specific code literally require NO changes to port. Assuming they have some Windows specific code in the application for downloading and installing games to their correct locations, it couldn't be easier to add a simple if(platform=="linux") then add some Linux specific logic to the sections which require that. For the company that created Unreal Engine 4, it couldn't be any easier to port something as simple as that, yet they still can't be bothered to do so.
So no they don't deserve credit for suggesting applying for a grant, assuming they would even give one and that throwaway statement wasn't just designed to give them temporary free positive PR among Linux gamers, they should just offer a Linux version of the store.
Epic is basically saying via their actions that they aren't willing to perform even the most minimal level of effort necessary to support Linux but they're happy for the Linux community to do the work for them. Contrast that against Valve's support.
Last edited by gradyvuckovic on 18 April 2019 at 12:16 pm UTC
23 Likes, Who?
I was shocked that the store had so much issues on Wine anyway.
Still, as long as there is no (official) BattlEye or Easy Anti Cheat support for Wine, nothing significant will change. And I fear this will be very long the case.
Still, as long as there is no (official) BattlEye or Easy Anti Cheat support for Wine, nothing significant will change. And I fear this will be very long the case.
3 Likes, Who?
Granted, I don't know how much this "grant" might be, and maybe I'm missing something, but what I think is happening is Tim Sweenie is saying: "We're not going to pay someone a living wage to do this work, how about you beg us for a few bucks and do it for us, instead?"
I'm a hypocrite for imagining this scenario, because I would be thrilled if some black-hearted mega-publisher were to offer the same deal to the Community to port/wrap their latest AAA release over to Linux. I just despise Epic so much right now, even their possibly good deeds are like apples from the Evil Queen: shiny, red, juicy with poison.
I feel no ill will towards the Lutris Crew ("Lucru") for making this happen. They deserve no less then a hundred times whatever $$ Epic may deign let fall from Lord Master Sweenie's table. I just can't help feeling that whatever time the Lucru spends doing Epic's work for them is time lost to improving Lutris in general.
I almost feel bad about how much I loath Epic. Almost.
Last edited by Nanobang on 18 April 2019 at 12:18 pm UTC
I'm a hypocrite for imagining this scenario, because I would be thrilled if some black-hearted mega-publisher were to offer the same deal to the Community to port/wrap their latest AAA release over to Linux. I just despise Epic so much right now, even their possibly good deeds are like apples from the Evil Queen: shiny, red, juicy with poison.
I feel no ill will towards the Lutris Crew ("Lucru") for making this happen. They deserve no less then a hundred times whatever $$ Epic may deign let fall from Lord Master Sweenie's table. I just can't help feeling that whatever time the Lucru spends doing Epic's work for them is time lost to improving Lutris in general.
I almost feel bad about how much I loath Epic. Almost.
Last edited by Nanobang on 18 April 2019 at 12:18 pm UTC
7 Likes, Who?
Cudos to the Lutirs-Team and GL in grabbing all the money they can from Epic.
But i deeply hope, that no one will consider supporting this company/store, that is trying to establish forced exclusives in the PC market and make everything worse for the customers...
But i deeply hope, that no one will consider supporting this company/store, that is trying to establish forced exclusives in the PC market and make everything worse for the customers...
11 Likes, Who?
wvstolzing Apr 18, 2019
-- not going to lie; I did set up an account in order to pick up Axiom Verge when that was a giveaway. Poverty be damned, I guess. Still to install it though; may as well try it now.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: wvstolzing-- not going to lie; I did set up an account in order to pick up Axiom Verge when that was a giveaway. Poverty be damned, I guess. Still to install it though; may as well try it now.
Nothing wrong with fetching stuff for free.
6 Likes, Who?
Comandante Ñoñardo Apr 18, 2019
Can I use Uplay and Origin client too?
3 Likes, Who?
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