After a long road, the waiting on We Happy Few for both Linux and Mac is about to come to an end. Not the happiest of endings either.
Originally funded on Kickstarter back in 2015 for $334,754 CA, Linux and Mac support was then announced for We Happy Few after the campaign had started. In 2017, it was announced that Compulsion Games teamed up with Gearbox Publishing to complete it.
Later in 2017 Compulsion Games announced work had begun on the ports, the whole game then had a delay and then Compulsion Games joined Microsoft in June of 2018 although they did confirmed then a Linux version was still happening.
Yesterday, they finally gave an update on what's been happening. The post on Kickstarter mentions that they "haven't reached a quality level that we are comfortable with" and they will not be selling or advertising a Linux or Mac version. However, they will offer a full refund to Linux/Mac backers and give out an unofficial Beta version as you will get to keep your copy even with the refund. They also said it will likely run slower than the Windows version, although on Linux it was said that Proton/Steam Play might be faster.
This Beta version for Linux was due with the 1.9 update released yesterday, although going by SteamDB it's not clear if that's actually happened yet and they've not said anything on it being released just yet.
After waiting so long, this is a real shame but they've handled this in a vastly better way than most other developers when they've been unable to do what they promised.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Okay, if it works better with Steam Play/Proton then I'd personally be fine with it... as long as I can play it, but it makes the work and effort put into the native version more or less useless... blessing or curse.
I'm wondering though, was the rating of the game not that great in the beginning? But with overall rating mostly positive and even recent reviews even very positive I might give it a shot.
Last edited by Corben on 12 November 2019 at 9:49 am UTC
rustybroomhandle Nov 12, 2019
Last edited by Botonoski on 12 November 2019 at 12:59 pm UTC
I suppose it has improved a lot since the August 2018 release, but it seems to remain slow, buggy and boring still. Also rocking a fat 60€ pricetag for the base game, or 92€ if you want the DLC's. Yeah, that's correct. Plural.
This isn't the era of 'fix the game first'... :(
Quoting: BotonoskiI feel that Microsoft itself is growing closer and closer to straight up gutting Windows 10 and replacing the internals with some kinda Linux-Windows backward-compatible hybrid monstrosity, though that may just be my imagination/bizare-fantasy. If that were to happen I gotta wonder how long, if ever, would it take for devs to move away from the compatibility layer and go full native.
They started by creating a IoT OS that is using Linux kernel, so it's not a fantasy anymore.
Last edited by Zlopez on 12 November 2019 at 11:10 am UTC
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