Streets of Rage 4 to be playable on Linux at release with Steam Play Proton

Streets of Rage 4 is a classic beat 'em up series revived thanks to Dotemu, Guard Crush Games and Lizardcube that releases today. It's also going to be playable on Linux.

While it won't currently offer official support from the development team for Linux, it appears they have given their backing to Valve and CodeWeavers for Steam Play Proton—the compatibility layer for Linux based on Wine. On Twitter, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned that the Streets of Rage 4 developers actually provided pre-release keys for Proton development. Thanks to that, Streets of Rage 4 will work "out of the box" with Proton 5.0-7 which is currently in Release Candidate stage and you can opt into it now.

YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

On a related note, Streets of Rage 4 actually uses the cross-platform FNA according to the creator and Linux porter Ethan Lee on Twitter, so perhaps in future full Linux support might still be a possibility.

Feature Highlight:

• The comeback of the legendary Streets of Rage series.
• Beautiful graphics fully hand-drawn animated by the studio behind Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap.
• Clean up Wood Oak City by yourself or with another friend online!
• For the very first time, team up to 4 people offline to take the city back!
• Classic gameplay enhanced with brand-new mechanics.
• Soundtrack by a wide all-star line up of world-class musicians.
• Braised chicken everywhere.
• A dozen former Streets of Rage characters unlockable and playable in their original pixel versions.
• Play with the music of the previous Streets of Rage games.
• 12 unique stages.

I imagine I'm not the only one here who had Streets of Rage as one of their first beat 'em up games, it's an absolute classic series. I have some seriously fond memories of playing the original on the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis) so having it working on Linux right away is quite a highlight.

You will be able to pick up Streets of Rage 4 later today from Humble Store and Steam.

See our dedicated page here for more info on Steam Play.