Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on Linux? Yes. It just today released on Steam, and thanks to Proton with Steam Play you can play this first-person shooter on Linux easily.
Coming as part of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection, available as a bundle or individually like Halo Reach, the experience is quite a lot easier on Linux since Reach released. Proton, the software bundled with Steam Play had some fixes to make it an out of the box experience in a previous update.
How to do it? Ensure you have Steam Play turned on and set up (our Steam Play guide can be found here), force the latest version of Proton (5.0-3) onto it and then it's click and play. Keep in mind you won't be able to play online multiplayer on Linux, as you will need to use the option the developer provided to turn off EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) before launching. That's still a downside to it, but one day EAC may work in Proton.
Here's a video testing it out on Manjaro Linux, with Proton 5.0-3. Keep in mind this is raw footage, a good 25 minutes long just to show how smoothly it works:
Direct Link
Love the HUD I have in the corner to show FPS and frame timings? That's the awesome Vulkan overlay 'Mango Hud', see more about that in this article.
For me, this is quite special, as this is the Halo I played when I was younger and one of the few times me and my brother were actually able to bond back then as we played in co-op. Honestly, it's amazing we can so easily do things like this on Linux now. Even without the blessing of Microsoft and 343 Industries, Valve/CodeWeavers together have made such things possible thanks to Proton which is built upon Wine. Gaming on Linux really can be awesome and surprise even me at times.
You can find the Halo: The Master Chief Collection and the newly released Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on Steam. Just keep in mind the note above about multiplayer.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: GuestI see the Steam page specifies an xbox live account required. Is that purely for multiplayer, or for the single player as well? It's not entirely clear.You need it for the whole thing.
1) The XBox live login can't be remembered between sessions so you'll need to login every time you launch the game. Fortunately, if you use Google or GitHub account for that you won't need to enter your login/password every time, just select the method.
2) There are quite noticeable issues with music in Halo:CE. Not a Linux issue and they know about it, parts of the tracks are looped poorly and played randomly, that ruins the immersion for me at least. Also the plasma pistol often emits the sound that it should only emit if it's overloaded but it does that after every shot.
If you want to play Halo the way it's meant to be played I suggest to wait for patches. Audio is a very important aspect of this game and without it working flawlessly you'd get a pretty average shooter, not the masterpiece it should be. Of course, consider the game's age: 18 years (omfg) for the base game and 8 years for the remastered graphics.
Last edited by FireStarW on 4 March 2020 at 3:18 am UTC
1) The requirement for an Xbox Live account does not require a Gold subscription, correct?
2) Even though multiplayer does not work in Linux, you can still create a private co-op session, right?
It will be hard NOT to buy this game.
Last edited by 14 on 4 March 2020 at 4:14 am UTC
Quoting: rkfgTwo notes:Doesn't happen to me, I linked my account and now I just click my bit and I'm right in the main menu.
1) The XBox live login can't be remembered between sessions so you'll need to login every time you launch the game. Fortunately, if you use Google or GitHub account for that you won't need to enter your login/password every time, just select the method.
Quoting: 14Two questions:1) No Gold needed, no, that would be ridiculous. It's a paid game, it just needs a login due to all the networking (as annoying as that is for single-player
1) The requirement for an Xbox Live account does not require a Gold subscription, correct?
2) Even though multiplayer does not work in Linux, you can still create a private co-op session, right?
It will be hard NOT to buy this game.
2) From reports I saw before, co-op works but it's unstable but those were a while ago it may have been solved by now.
Quoting: Liam DaweBut you still have to select GitHub/Google, correct? I expect to get to the menu instantly after launching the game and it doesn't happen. I suppose it remembers whatever token is used to authenticate me but it still requires to choose the auth method for that or enter the username/email.Quoting: rkfgTwo notes:Doesn't happen to me, I linked my account and now I just click my bit and I'm right in the main menu.
1) The XBox live login can't be remembered between sessions so you'll need to login every time you launch the game. Fortunately, if you use Google or GitHub account for that you won't need to enter your login/password every time, just select the method.
Quoting: Liam Dawe2) From reports I saw before, co-op works but it's unstable but those were a while ago it may have been solved by now.Co-op still has major issues.
Last edited by rkfg on 4 March 2020 at 11:24 am UTC
Quoting: rkfgNo, I literally open the game, click my user on the XBL screen and then I'm in. What Proton version are you using? I remember the update that fixed it mentioned you needed to use the Steam Beta Client if you're on an older distribution too as it needs a newer version of gnutls.Quoting: Liam DaweBut you still have to select GitHub/Google, correct? I expect to get to the menu instantly after launching the game and it doesn't happen. I suppose it remembers whatever token is used to authenticate me but it still requires to choose the auth method for that or enter the username/email.Quoting: rkfgTwo notes:Doesn't happen to me, I linked my account and now I just click my bit and I'm right in the main menu.
1) The XBox live login can't be remembered between sessions so you'll need to login every time you launch the game. Fortunately, if you use Google or GitHub account for that you won't need to enter your login/password every time, just select the method.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 4 March 2020 at 11:40 am UTC
Quoting: Liam DaweHmm, that's weird then. I use Proton 5.0-3, after I launch the game it always says "Let's get you signed in". The gnutls issue was more serious, it didn't allow you to sign in at all (or even launch the game, don't remember) due to a missing function. I'll try to switch to Steam Beta just to check.Quoting: rkfgNo, I literally open the game, click my user on the XBL screen and then I'm in. What Proton version are you using? I remember the update that fixed it mentioned you needed to use the Steam Beta Client if you're on an older distribution too as it needs a newer version of gnutls.Quoting: Liam DaweBut you still have to select GitHub/Google, correct? I expect to get to the menu instantly after launching the game and it doesn't happen. I suppose it remembers whatever token is used to authenticate me but it still requires to choose the auth method for that or enter the username/email.Quoting: rkfgTwo notes:Doesn't happen to me, I linked my account and now I just click my bit and I'm right in the main menu.
1) The XBox live login can't be remembered between sessions so you'll need to login every time you launch the game. Fortunately, if you use Google or GitHub account for that you won't need to enter your login/password every time, just select the method.
EDIT: looks like when I login with email and password it remembers me. I don't need to enter these details after restart anymore. I used GitHub login because there were troubles with login on the release before Wine has been patched and I got tired entering the long password over and over. Now it just works.
Last edited by rkfg on 4 March 2020 at 12:47 pm UTC
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