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It's been quite a while since we had a community chat post for Linux gaming, so let's get it going again: what have you been gaming on Linux lately?

There's so many games releasing all the time, along with cloud gaming very much being a thing that you can game across all sorts of Linux devices now. New isn't always better though of course and I often go back to the comfort of a few "safety" games that I know I will enjoy. Lately, that's been a likely unhealthy amount of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

With the latest Operation named Broken Fang, it pulled in the a Retakes game mode and I have to say, I have been enjoying that massively. It's much quicker to get through, with the T side planting the bomb as soon as a round starts. Smaller levels along with picking your loadout from cards, it really has mixed up how to play CS:GO for the better. The Wingman mode is also a huge amount of fun with quick 2v2 rounds. Well worth looking into if you've not played either modes.

Apart from that, I can't get away without mentioning Valheim, the singleplayer and co-op Viking survival game. It's simply brilliant. I've been happily playing it alone, as I'm just constantly discovering new things and it's a real joy while now and then hopping into the community-run GamingOnLinux servers (info in our Discord) to see what amazing creations people have done with the building tools.

Over to you in the comments: what's been pulling you in lately and are you enjoying it? Give over your latest recommendation to fellow readers.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Community, Misc
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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67 comments
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psy-q Feb 14, 2021
Blazed through Dark Souls 3 after getting it during the Steam holiday sale, then finished Yakuza 0. Very satisfied with both! Then I went back into Dead Cells after getting the Bad Seed DLC and I'm working on finishing Dark Souls Remastered.
Boldos Feb 14, 2021
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Hello everyone. I have a confession to make:
I'm a total addict to X4: Foundations.
Usually I turn it on just for a few moments, and usually I do not finish before 4am.

Am I a bad person?
Rooster Feb 14, 2021
After one year of owning the game, I was finally able to get into Everspace. And man.. What a dumb chicken I am for not playing it earlier. I love the game more than I ever though I would.

So why did I not start playing it earlier? Well I'm not much into rouge-likes or rouge-lights. What I did not know is that this game is rouge-light in the same way FTL is, meaning you don't go through the same levels, they change on every run. It is still rubbing me the wrong way loosing all gear when I die, but at least the perks stay, which can make you significantly stronger, so I don't mind it too much.

Now what is the actual reason I love the game? The exploration. You never know what you will stumble upon and there is some crazy and interesting stuff out there.
Rooster Feb 14, 2021
Blazed through Dark Souls 3 .

One does not simply blaze thorough Dark Souls.

Hello everyone. I have a confession to make:
I'm a total addict to X4: Foundations.
Usually I turn it on just for a few moments, and usually I do not finish before 4am.

Am I a bad person?

No way. Actually this is why I've been putting of getting into X4, because I know that game is such a time sink.
Jollt Feb 14, 2021
Valheim, thanks GOL. hahaha
Ehvis Feb 14, 2021
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I've be playing more Factorio (that game ), reached the latest part of Witcher 2 in my witcher run and finally finished Half-Life: Alyx.
lukas333 Feb 14, 2021
Risk of Rain 2 in coop, it's very fun though hard. Definitely scratches that itch for progression and unlocking new characters etc.
mrdeathjr Feb 14, 2021
Testing some native thing like this:


Yuzu 02-2021 OpenGL Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Eg232i5PM


Yuzu 02-2021 Vulkan Native Test 1



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYIxxbJndTk


Yuzu 02-2021 Vulkan Native Test 2



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkr-fGDFMUY


PPSSPP 1.11 OpenGL Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jXu4VEw0No


PPSSPP 1.11 Vulkan + MMPX Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ISnbTeSBDs


MednaFFE 0.9.0 Saturn Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSkeSFZp1HI


MednaFFE 0.9.0 PSX Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a49KoanJC_Y


MednaFFE 0.9.0 PCFX Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEMwqo3bnTI


MednaFFE 0.9.0 PCE-CD Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12DzrpWZz9U


MednaFFE 0.9.0 PCE Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-386mEqQP5Y


MednaFFE 0.9.0 SGX Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wtl35IttE


MednaFFE 0.9.0 SNES Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY3co-eHAUI


MednaFFE 0.9.0 NES Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru66BP35fVQ


MednaFFE 0.9.0 Genesis Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zUgiD0BXmY


MednaFFE 0.9.0 MasterSystem Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKTS0rdHVLU


MednaFFE 0.9.0 GBA Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dqDTqdM-es


MednaFFE 0.9.0 VB Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kBTDJFv5w4


MednaFFE 0.9.0 GameGear Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIMFvIonnsY


MednaFFE 0.9.0 WSC Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51q-LA-i9-E


MednaFFE 0.9.0 NGP Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcc3mVc1GaI


MednaFFE 0.9.0 GBC Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT5ygiMWnZs


MednaFFE 0.9.0 GB Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyJtvRFGipE


MednaFFE 0.9.0 Lynx Native



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSH9O2gnYX4




Last edited by mrdeathjr on 14 February 2021 at 10:51 pm UTC
Xpander Feb 14, 2021
Valheim, really love the game. Taking it slowly though, no rushing to the end. 50 hours played already. Runs pretty smooth and no crashes so far either.

DiRT Rally 2.0 (proton 5.13) - some rally action occasionally.

Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning (wine-staging) - Haven't played much since Valheim, but still getting my PvP fix from it :)

Thief (2014) (proton 5.13) - 2 weeks ago i didnt even know there was a 4th thief game. bought it on sale.. 8 hours played.. quite digging it.. its a bit dumbed down compared to older versions. AI is stupid etc, but the storyline is quite fun and runs super good with proton.

Path of Exile (proton 5.13) - played with a friend about 7 hours, was quite fun, runs good also, but not my type of game really.


Last edited by Xpander on 14 February 2021 at 6:06 pm UTC
micha 10 years Feb 14, 2021
I played and finished The Medium recently. No Ray-Tracing with SteamPlay/Proton (yet) but still enjoyed it a lot.

Started with Cyber Shadow which is awesome!

And ofc some Valheim as everyone else..
Sich Feb 14, 2021
I try to learn more on Stationeers...
I own this game for a long time now, but I didn't really try to play before...

Big learning curve on the game, but the last updates are really interesting.
benke Feb 14, 2021
Just bought Baltic and Black Sea DLCs so I am back to ETS2 :-) Also played excelent free game B.i.t.Lock and game called Inside which is actualy Windows game (by same authors of great Limbo) but it works well under Wine.
Kithop Feb 14, 2021
Personally, a small group of friends and I had, up to recently, mostly been playing Empyrion: Galactic Survival, which, while not a native Linux game, runs basically flawlessly via Proton, with the usual anti-cheat issues (I host my own server for it, begrudgingly, on a Windows Server VM that I keep around for such situations). Unfortunately, their latest update started causing some very strange issues with blocks being replaced when you weren't looking with ones that shouldn't even fit (e.g. the cockpit of a Small Vessel turning into a Capital Vessel double-door... but at teeny tiny scale), I think related to spawning in blueprints.

Since we didn't want to risk screwing things up any further, we've shelved that one for now to give them time to hopefully identify & hotfix.

Instead, we've gone back to 7 Days to Die, which does have native Linux builds of not just the dedicated server (again, running my own), but the client as well (interestingly, I believe both Empryion and 7D2D are Unity games, but only the latter has native builds). Interestingly, it looks like as of the combo of 'my weird bleeding edge Gentoo setup', 'actually working AMDGPU drivers now that I've switched away from nVidia', and the current game build of A19.3, the 'not fully implemented yet' Vulkan renderer (via the 'Show game launcher' option when starting) seems to be working like a champ for me, and gives me way better/more stable frame rates over OpenGL.

One note, if you have multiple GPUs like, say, an onboard Intel iGPU as well, you may need to edit the Command Line Options in Steam for 7D2D and include something like:
Spoiler, click me

export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json; %command%
or, in my case, adding in MangoHud and suspending KDE Plasma's compositor:
export MANGOHUD=1; export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json; qdbus org.kde.KWin /Compositor suspend;mangohud %command%;qdbus org.kde.KWin /Compositor resume
the 'export MANGOHUD=1' and running 'mangohud %command%' are likely redundant, but I seem to remember one of them covers the OpenGL use case and the other Vulkan, so having both means you can switch back and forth for testing without editing this again.

I used NitroGen to create a custom map per my friend's request: 'a lot of big cities'...


Embiggen Map

In addition to our core 4-player team, we ended up bringing in another 3 or 4 of our friends, and their friends, who had either never played the game at all before, or at least had less than 10 hours in it (I'm personally just over 200 hours in, while it's my friend's partner's favourite game, and they have over 1000 hours and counting), and we've had a... blast... taking over a military camp PoI that spawns surrounded by landmines and turning its underground bunker into our home. Playing with 7-8 people at once is... an exercise in coordination, for sure, but it's hilarious hearing the new players' reactions to certain jump scares in PoIs we've been to plenty of times, seeing certain enemies for the first time, etc.

After stints in previous playthroughs as the 'heavy armour + shotgun in a concrete pillbox / mining' guy and the 'stays at home and ascends the Intelligence tech tree to make vehicles, traps, and other cool shit' guy, I think I've settled on going for the oft-maligned Agility tree, because the Parkour skill (higher jump height, less fall damage, immune to breaking your legs, etc.) is just... too fun. On horde nights, my job is basically to run around and kite dozens of zombies back and forth just outside our walls so our snipers can pick them off without getting harassed as much. Cue Yakety Sax.

Between 7 Days to Die sessions, I like to mess around with the Paradox Grand Strategy games, like Hearts of Iron IV (also native Linux builds and basically flawless ones at that!), or even good old modded Minecraft, leveraging MultiMC to manage various modpacks and, again, hosting my own server(s) as needed - though that's on my FreeBSD system directly in Java of course.

Games I've poked at and want to come back to when our current 7D2D stint is up include Raft (also flawless via Proton), Satisfactory (again, great with Proton, though you may want to look up how to increase network usage/bandwidth caps for multiplayer), Eco, and of course, Stardew Valley.
PublicNuisance Feb 14, 2021
In the last month I have finished Sable's Grimoire: A Dragon's Treasure; Bermuda; Lilith Hall; Oculto; Kiara And My Ara Ara Adventure; CONTROL: Sci-Fi Psychological Visual Novel; The Darkside Detective; as well as replaying through Condemned: Criminal Origins and F.E.A.R.

Condemned and F.E.A.R. were as good as I remembered. A Dragon's Treasure and The Darkside Detective were great. Control was terrible. Bermuda; Lillith Hall were decent. Oculto was medicore.

I plan to start Evoland; Evoland 2 as well as Death and Taxes soon and then delve into a replay of Quake IV.
Supay Feb 14, 2021
An unholy amount of Valheim. It is really good. Nice to day 1 be able to play on a co-op with my friends, even if they are misguided Windows sufferers.
Tchey Feb 14, 2021
Nothing but 60 hours of Valheim.
And some Gladiator Manager (without "s").
psy-q Feb 14, 2021
Blazed through Dark Souls 3 .

One does not simply blaze thorough Dark Souls.

Well, I did smell the roses a bit and I'm not feeling like I've missed anything important. Took 65 hours, yet it still seemed like a bullet train compared to my DS1 playthrough. I've been trying to finish DS1 for years and DS3 took only two months!
jens Feb 14, 2021
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Not really gaming but kind-of: Advent of Code https://adventofcode.com/2020. I still have a few days to go...


Last edited by jens on 14 February 2021 at 7:42 pm UTC
furaxhornyx Feb 14, 2021
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I recently started playing Adore, a cute (but not "kawai") rogue-like. Think Gremlins, not Slime Rancher

The game is in early access, but according to their Discord (which I join because it is the only way to report bugs), a Linux version seems to be planned. I currently run it under Proton, and so far the game runs ok, I could finish the higher difficulty without major problem. I think it could run better, but the game is in early access, so...

And then, as everyone seemed to enjoy Valheim, and since it was in my wishlist since a long time, I bought it... and got hooked as well

I am currently enjoying it solo, so I can take my time to discover the possibilities offered by the game

Spoiler, click me
I killed a troll, which revealed the troll armor blueprints... so I went down chasing some trolls. After a few hours, I finally got a complete set
TobyGornow Feb 14, 2021
I've just finished The last story a J-Rpg from Hironobu Sakaguchi-Sama and it was great. Too bad this game only got released on Wii, reducing it's audience to casual player, maybe not the best target for a J-rpg, it deserves a re-release. Only Blue dragon left and I my Mistwalker experience will be complete.

Now, I'm 4 hours into Control from Remedy, one of my favorite studio, so much I bought an Xbox one only for Quantum break. And so far it's really good and beautiful, latest proton works like a charm and gives perfect results, not a hiccup or a graphical bug.

Next, I'm not sure, Fallen order or finishing my run of ME : Andromeda ?
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