After repeatedly trying to get an answer, we now finally have it confirmed that Aspyr Media will be doing no further updates to Borderlands 2. While Aspyr Media are still continuing to update their ports of Civilization VI for Linux / macOS, the situation with the Borderlands series is just sad.
You might be confused, since Borderlands 2 is from 2012. So why are we mentioning this now? Well, it came to Linux later in 2014 and last year it gained one final DLC with Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary plus the Borderlands 2 Ultra HD Texture Pack. Both of which are missing for Linux and along with those and updates to support them, this broke cross-platform play between Linux, macOS and Windows.
Aspyr Media said last year they were working to get it all up to date on Linux. Time went on, we reached out to them a few times and each time it went unanswered. Until today that is, where their partners got in touch with us with a statement: "At this time, we can confirm that there are no further updates planned for Borderlands 2 on Linux and Mac. We will continue to provide customer service support to players via support.aspyr.com.".
Note: while it wasn't mentioned, this all likely affects Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel too.
Obviously all games stop being updated at some point, not everything is a live-service style game and developers do move on. Still, missing entire updates and DLC is ridiculous. We have no idea if this is due to Gearbox Software, 2K or Aspyr Media directly and we likely never will as these sorts of deals are never made public.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
DebianUser Sep 11, 2020
Sad. They release a late DLC and HD pack, we just think it was a good thing.... but all they do is broke the multiplayer between platforms... great...
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marcelomendes Sep 11, 2020
Well, I wasn't sure about buying BL3, but after this I will just remove it from my wishlist. Thanks for the heads up Liam.
6 Likes, Who?
Thank you aspyr for the Linux port of this game in a time where proton didn't exist. Thanks to them I played it and it was a great game. If I were to replay it now I would probably use proton.
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slaapliedje Sep 11, 2020
On the note of porting in general;
I was thinking about this the other day. While we have both Unity and Unreal engines with the potential of a 'click to export to Linux' have we really seen a large amount of Unreal based games coming natively to Linux? There are a few here and there, but I remember how much I wanted Raven Shield to be released natively, as Unreal Tournament and several others in that series were released natively. But it never happened, mostly based on publisher choices vs developers (though in some cases they make mistakes of choosing the wrong middleware, which was the reason why UT3 never came out for us).
But it really makes me feel like Epic only added the Linux export option to Unreal so as not to be beaten by the up and coming Unity engine. If they gave a damn about us, we'd see the Epic Games store and Fortnite ported. Not that I would play such a game, as I tend to not play multiplayer games with people I don't know. But it is definitely one of the more popular ones, and would help get more users to Linux, or at least less reasons for people to boot into Windows.
It's sad about BL2, but I honestly barely played it under Linux, as it didn't seem to have all the features enabled that the Windows version did. Like the PhysX effects.
I was thinking about this the other day. While we have both Unity and Unreal engines with the potential of a 'click to export to Linux' have we really seen a large amount of Unreal based games coming natively to Linux? There are a few here and there, but I remember how much I wanted Raven Shield to be released natively, as Unreal Tournament and several others in that series were released natively. But it never happened, mostly based on publisher choices vs developers (though in some cases they make mistakes of choosing the wrong middleware, which was the reason why UT3 never came out for us).
But it really makes me feel like Epic only added the Linux export option to Unreal so as not to be beaten by the up and coming Unity engine. If they gave a damn about us, we'd see the Epic Games store and Fortnite ported. Not that I would play such a game, as I tend to not play multiplayer games with people I don't know. But it is definitely one of the more popular ones, and would help get more users to Linux, or at least less reasons for people to boot into Windows.
It's sad about BL2, but I honestly barely played it under Linux, as it didn't seem to have all the features enabled that the Windows version did. Like the PhysX effects.
0 Likes
Kimyrielle Sep 11, 2020
Quoting: slaapliedjeI was thinking about this the other day. While we have both Unity and Unreal engines with the potential of a 'click to export to Linux' have we really seen a large amount of Unreal based games coming natively to Linux?
The major standard engines support Linux, but, yes, a lot of the middleware components devs plug into their games to save time, do not. Since studios tend to develop the entire game on Windows until it's done, even when they promised a Linux version, they often don't even find out until it's too late.
Another, newer effect is Proton, which is totally awesome, but also gave these Windows-only developers an excuse not to care about ports.
And the third one is that Steam Machines failed the way they did. In the beginning, a lot of studios believed Steam Machines to become a thing, but gave up on Linux once it turned out that they did not. We're still just the 1% market share they don't really care about.
In short, yes, it seems porting is largely dead. Thankfully, thanks to Proton, Linux gaming is not. Ironically we can play more games on Linux now than ever.
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Mohandevir Sep 11, 2020
It's sad to see these "legacy" 2012-2016 native Linux ports (failed Steam Machines) falling into decay like this, one by one, but it's unfortunately not unexpected.
Proton is not the solution either... Linux gaming is still "dependent" on Windows, playing a game of trying to catch up with Windows' new gaming features, thus making Linux a perpetual second grade citizen. Still better than nothing, though.
It's just that it highlights the fact that no solutions are 100% thrustworthy. That's the saddest part, imo.
Proton is not the solution either... Linux gaming is still "dependent" on Windows, playing a game of trying to catch up with Windows' new gaming features, thus making Linux a perpetual second grade citizen. Still better than nothing, though.
It's just that it highlights the fact that no solutions are 100% thrustworthy. That's the saddest part, imo.
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ElectricPrism Sep 11, 2020
Quoting: MohandevirIt's sad to see these "legacy" 2012-2016 native Linux ports (failed Steam Machines) falling into decay like this, one by one, but it's unfortunately not unexpected.
It's pretty similar to how you buy a ROM aka Ocarina of Time for say Nintendo Wii from their and it stops getting updates someday.
Quoting: MohandevirProton is not the solution either... Linux gaming is still "dependent" on Windows, playing a game of trying to catch up with Windows' new gaming features, thus making Linux a perpetual second grade citizen. Still better than nothing, though.
I disagree, Proton is about creating "Containers" around games to preserve them. As long as they're not targeting a "Moving Target" and the game is in a static-state they seem to consistently knock down barriers and enable Games on a Steam Linux OS Platform.
Quoting: MohandevirIt's just that it highlights the fact that no solutions are 100% thrustworthy. That's the saddest part, imo.
Honestly, I think it just underlines the hardships businesses are having this year from Corona-virus lockdowns. Adapting is hard.
They really should have never broken cross-platform compatibility.
As long as the core games still works I'm not a fan of bitching too hard. For me that's what I bought it for.
I assume you can play it via Proton if you want without too much hassle
https://www.protondb.com/app/49520
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 11 September 2020 at 9:32 pm UTC
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That's disappointing, but I've been using Proton to play BL2 for a while. It was the only way I could play co-op with my son, who is a Win-only gamer.
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Quoting: MohandevirIt's just that it highlights the fact that no solutions are 100% thrustworthy. That's the saddest part, imo.
AFAIK, all the Feral ports still work and are still supported, but yeah: native versions have been pulled, ports by these other porting houses have stopped working, and Windows-only games can get changes that stop them working in Wine. And I get the impression that Linux ports for Feral aren't as profitable as the other things they could be doing with their time, assuming they can find a developer-partner that will let them do it in the first place.
1 Likes, Who?
Comandante Ñoñardo Sep 11, 2020
As I said a lot of times:
If Valve gives a good incentive to the big publishers, they will port all the AAA games to Linux.
"If your game has fully functional SteamOS/Linux version, instead of charge you the 30% of the game price, I'm gonna charge you only the 5% of the game price"
But nooo! For some mysterious reason GabeN refuse to do this....
If Valve gives a good incentive to the big publishers, they will port all the AAA games to Linux.
"If your game has fully functional SteamOS/Linux version, instead of charge you the 30% of the game price, I'm gonna charge you only the 5% of the game price"
But nooo! For some mysterious reason GabeN refuse to do this....
3 Likes, Who?
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