The February 2021 round-up here's our top articles

Here is a look back some of the most popular articles on GamingOnLinux for February 2021, an easy way to for you to keep up to date on what has happened in the past month for Linux gaming, open source and other general Linux news that we cover! If you wish to keep track of these overview posts you can with our Overview RSS.

Here's what was popular with our readers:

• Terraria for Stadia cancelled and and now it's back on
  • Stadia is going through a period of uncertainty right now and it definitely didn't help that Re-Logic initially cancelled Terraria. Thankfully for Stadia users it's now actually back on.
• Valheim hits 1 million sales, then 2 million, then 3 million and then 4 million as it entered the top 5 most played games ever released on Steam
  • Valheim has truly become an absolute runaway hit and it's been out less than a month! A survival game about Vikings running around in co-op chopping down trees and facing off against big bosses.
• Classic open source simulation game OpenTTD is coming to Steam
  • OpenTTD, the free and open source simulation game based upon Transport Tycoon Deluxe is officially coming to Steam on April 1, and the Linux build will be available too.
• Valve to lose $4 million for patent infringement with the Steam Controller
  • Valve are yet again hitting the spotlight for the wrong reasons following the ruling from the EU Commission over geo-blocking, a lawsuit involving game pricing and now the Steam Controller too.
• Portal 2 from Valve gets a big update with Vulkan support from DXVK
  • Portal 2, the classic first-person puzzle game from Valve available on Steam, just had a huge upgrade come out of nowhere along with Vulkan API support powered by the DXVK project.
• Free and open source space sim Pioneer updated with new UI and better combat
  • Pioneer is another classic example of a long-running free and open source game doing well, with a brand new release up that overhauls plenty of important parts.
• Google shutting their internal game dev studios, focusing directly on Stadia tech
  • In a move that is sure to raise plenty of eyebrows, and worry Stadia supporters, Google has announced they're shutting down SG&E (Stadia Games & Entertainment) and no longer doing first-party games.
• Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit
  • Valve are in the legal spotlight again following the EU Commission Fine with a few more Steam troubles, as a new lawsuit has emerged with a claim about an "abuse" of their market power.
• Open source RTS 0 A.D. Alpha 24 is out now with plenty of new features
  • After a few years of waiting, Wildfire Games have released a big upgrade for the free and open source real-time strategy game 0 A.D. with Alpha 24 now available.
• FOSS soft-body physics simulator Rigs of Rods has a new release
  • In need of a new fun physics sim? How about one that's free, open source and can be played in multiplayer? Rigs of Rods might be what you're after and they have a new release.
• OpenGL on top of Vulkan with Zink to work with NVIDIA drivers on Linux
  • Here's a short and sweet update on the work for Zink, the upcoming OpenGL on top of Vulkan implementation announced by Collabora which has been progressing steadily.
• Total War: WARHAMMER III announced and confirmed for Linux by Feral Interactive
  • Total War: WARHAMMER III has just been formally announced by SEGA / Creative Assembly and the good news is that porter Feral Interactive have right away confirmed it's being supported on Linux (and macOS).
• Stadia to see more than 100 games through 2021
  • Despite the rising amount of people believing Stadia won't be around for long, we're into another year and Google have announced that more than 100 games will release for Stadia through 2021.
• GTA III and Vice City get reverse engineered with a new game engine followed by Take-Two Interactive hit the DMCA nuke on GTA III and Vice City reverse engineered effort
  • GTA III and Vice City came, gave us hope for an up to date way to play them and then sadly got completely nuked from orbit by the rights holders.
• Minetest 5.4.0 to make downloading mods and games a lot easier
  • Minetest is the free and open source voxel game engine, inspired originally by Minecraft it's gradually becoming bigger and better with lots of available games for it.
• Windows compatibility layer Wine 6.2 is out now
  • A fresh biweekly development release is out for the Windows compatibility layer Wine with Wine 6.2 bundling up more of the latest and greatest into a suitable release for you to try.
• Ludusavi seems like a pretty good open source game save backup tool
  • Need something to keep your game saves backed up with a friendly UI? Ludusavi is one such project that's free and open source, so anyone can help with it.
• Plasma 5.21 rolls out as one of the best looking Linux desktops available
  • Love your PC to look flashy? The KDE team put in a lot of effort to be both beautiful and functional with the latest Plasma 5.21 release which is out now.
• Direct3D 12 to Vulkan translation lib VKD3D-Proton 2.2 is out, prepares DirectX Raytracing
  • We just recently had the DXVK 1.8 release for Direct3D 9/10/11 to Vulkan and now we also have the VKD3D-Proton 2.2 release landing as well.
• Steam Play Proton 5.13-6 is now officially out
  • After a rather short testing period with the release candidates only being announced a few days ago, Valve has now pushed out the official release of Steam Play Proton 5.13-6.
• Eat and destroy stars in Stellaris: Nemesis and become the endgame crisis
  • Stellaris: Nemesis is going to boost some very exciting things for the grand space strategy game from Paradox, with a huge new endgame crisis coming where you get to pick a side.
• How about a nice game of Chess with Lichess
  • Chess, it's a classic right? So how about a nice game of Chess? I am in fact talking about Lichess, a free and open source browser-based online Chess game.
• Ubuntu getting a new installer, desktop lead to leave Canonical
  • Two big bits of news from Canonical and Ubuntu to cover today and both about the future of the Linux distribution.
• Saber Interactive / Embracer Group acquire Aspyr Media, Gearbox
  • Another day another acquisition with Saber Interactive / Embracer Group acquiring Aspyr Media and so we see the continuing worrying trend of consolidation in the games industry. Plus, Gearbox too.

Additionally, here's some great recent releases we've enjoyed you should check out:

• Hadean Tactics
• Of Mice and Moggies
• Mutropolis
• Nebuchadnezzar
• Mini Countries
• qomp
• Rogue Star Rescue
• Valheim

We published a total of 151 articles last month! You can see who contributed articles on this page.

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