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.
gradyvuckovic Apr 18, 2019
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
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.
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
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...
wvstolzing Apr 18, 2019
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.
Comandante Ñoñardo Apr 18, 2019
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