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While it was playable with the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer, 4A Games and Deep Silver have today officially released Metro Exodus for Linux.

"Metro Exodus is an epic, story-driven first person shooter from 4A Games that blends deadly combat and stealth with exploration and survival horror in one of the most immersive game worlds ever created. Explore the Russian wilderness across vast, non-linear levels and follow a thrilling story-line that spans an entire year through spring, summer and autumn to the depths of nuclear winter."

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Game Features:

  • Embark on an incredible journey - board the Aurora, a heavily modified steam locomotive, and join a handful of survivors as they search for a new life in the East
  • Experience Sandbox Survival - a gripping story links together classic Metro gameplay with new huge, non-linear levels
  • A beautiful, hostile world - discover the post-apocalyptic Russian wilderness, brought to life with stunning day / night cycles and dynamic weather
  • Deadly combat and stealth - scavenge and craft in the field to customize your arsenal of hand-made weaponry, and engage human and mutant foes in thrilling tactical combat
  • Your choices determine your comrades’ fate - not all your companions will survive the journey; your decisions have consequence in a gripping storyline that offers massive re-playability
  • The ultimate in atmosphere and immersion - a flickering candle in the darkness; a ragged gasp as your gasmask frosts over; the howl of a mutant on the night wind - Metro will immerse and terrify you like no other game…

As a reminder here's the specifications suggested for the Linux port:

Since Metro Exodus supports Ray Tracing on Linux, expect to need a powerful GPU to get good framerates in it.

Giveaway (CLOSED)

To go along with the release, a kind reader has offered up three copies to give away! These will be sent as a Steam Gift, so once winners are picked they will need to provide their Steam account for us to friend and then gift the copies. How to enter? Simply make it clear in your comment you wish to win a copy and winners will be picked Friday, April 16. Note: giveaway now closed!

Note: as of right now, it looks like they haven't sorted out all the key depots on Steam, meaning not everyone will actually be able to download the Linux version until they attach it all up correctly on Steam. It's a common pitfall we wrote about before to help developers. Update: this should now be solved.

If you find you have some audio popping, adding this as launch option may solve it:

PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 %command%

You can buy it on Fanatical (on sale), Humble Store, and Steam

Here's some initial footage from the Linux port running on Ultra at 1080p. Recording did reduce the performance:

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217 comments
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WorMzy Apr 16, 2021
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: ripper81358AMD GPU owners should avoid this game for now. It seems to have massive problems with the MESA drivers.

The only way to get it working without trouble is to use AMDVLK right now. The performance is not good with this driver though.

I didn't notice a big difference between AMDVLK and Radv, maybe a few less frames here and there (I'm using vsync though).

Same here. I've played for an hour using AMDVLK (credit to Masacre ) without any noticeable FPS drop, and no memory leak (system never went above 12GB usage).


Last edited by WorMzy on 16 April 2021 at 9:49 pm UTC
CFWhitman Apr 16, 2021
Quoting: ripper81358
Quoting: CFWhitman
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: ripper81358AMD GPU owners should avoid this game for now. It seems to have massive problems with the MESA drivers.

The only way to get it working without trouble is to use AMDVLK right now. The performance is not good with this driver though.

I didn't notice a big difference between AMDVLK and Radv, maybe a few less frames here and there (I'm using vsync though).

I've heard reports of running out of memory and crashing with RADV after you had played for a while. I haven't tried it yet. I just started 2033. I figure by the time I make it through that and Last Light, the issues will have been figured out for the most part.

The problems reported for AMD GPU's are ranging from instant crashes on startup to memory leaks that consume all the RAM available on the system. Metro Exodus uses Vulkan as the graphics API. The older Metro games are using OpenGL. So two different MESA drivers are used for the games.

The reports I've heard of instant crashes on startup seem to be related to running Wayland rather than actually anything to do with AMD GPUs. It's just that most Wayland users have AMD GPUs. I don't currently use Wayland, so that's not likely to be an issue for me.

I mentioned the apparent memory leak related to RADV. It seems that using AMDVLK functions as a workaround to this issue for the time being.

I'm well aware that Exodus uses Vulkan while the older games use OpenGL. I'm not sure how that's important. As I said, I hadn't played the earlier games, and I figure by the time I have played through them, the initial hiccups of the new release will be mostly ironed out. By then, I'd expect the RADV problem to most likely be fixed, but even if I did have to play with AMDVLK, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
KuJo Apr 17, 2021
................./´¯/)......................................(\¯`\.................
................/....//........................................\\...\................
.............../....//..........................................\\ ..\...............
........../´¯/..../´¯\................................../¯`\....\¯`\.........
......././.. /..../..../. |_...DEEP SILVER..._|..\...\....\....\.\.....
.....(.(....(....(..../.) ..)..EPIC STORE........(..(.\....).....)....).)....
......\................\/.../..... TENCENT.......\...\/................./.....
.......\.................../.........Denuvo.........\..................../......
........\.................(..................................)................../.....
.........\................NO STEAM, NO BUY!!!............../.......

https://steamcommunity.com/app/412020/eventcomments/1636418037462790200/?tscn=1548839950

Well ... in the meantime it's on Steam. But I was so pissed off at the time that I still notice it today. I didn't buy it when the Windows version was released on Steam (to play it with Proton). And I won't buy it now either. Even though one copy more or less doesn't make a difference. For me it's a matter of principle.
ripper81358 Apr 17, 2021
Quoting: CFWhitman
Quoting: ripper81358
Quoting: CFWhitman
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: ripper81358AMD GPU owners should avoid this game for now. It seems to have massive problems with the MESA drivers.

The only way to get it working without trouble is to use AMDVLK right now. The performance is not good with this driver though.

I didn't notice a big difference between AMDVLK and Radv, maybe a few less frames here and there (I'm using vsync though).

I've heard reports of running out of memory and crashing with RADV after you had played for a while. I haven't tried it yet. I just started 2033. I figure by the time I make it through that and Last Light, the issues will have been figured out for the most part.

The problems reported for AMD GPU's are ranging from instant crashes on startup to memory leaks that consume all the RAM available on the system. Metro Exodus uses Vulkan as the graphics API. The older Metro games are using OpenGL. So two different MESA drivers are used for the games.

The reports I've heard of instant crashes on startup seem to be related to running Wayland rather than actually anything to do with AMD GPUs. It's just that most Wayland users have AMD GPUs. I don't currently use Wayland, so that's not likely to be an issue for me.

I mentioned the apparent memory leak related to RADV. It seems that using AMDVLK functions as a workaround to this issue for the time being.

I'm well aware that Exodus uses Vulkan while the older games use OpenGL. I'm not sure how that's important. As I said, I hadn't played the earlier games, and I figure by the time I have played through them, the initial hiccups of the new release will be mostly ironed out. By then, I'd expect the RADV problem to most likely be fixed, but even if I did have to play with AMDVLK, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Using AMDVLK is not the end of the world for sure. But it should not be neccesary. AMDVLK is not easily available on many distributions. If you install it on Ubuntu alongside MESA RADV the system will default to AMDVLK. That means you have to set a startoption for every game that should use MESA RADV just because one game needs AMDVLK. AMDVLK also causes trouble with the Vulkan shaderprocessing because once it is installed steam will recompile all shaders for AMDVLK instead of MESA RADV.

While i got the game working with AMDVLK performance is noticeable worse. I get stuttering while playing which isn't the case with MESA RADV.
Eike Apr 17, 2021
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  • Supporter Plus
Linux users like "give us big native games!".

Publisher gives big native game, Linux users like
* "It's not on Gog, I wont buy it!"
* "It has been on Epic store, I won't buy it!"
* "It's got an NVidia logo in the intro, I won't buy it!"
* "I already bought it months ago when it was Windows exclusive, I won't buy it!"
ghiuma Apr 18, 2021
Guys I don't know about you but the ps4 controller doesn't work on Metro and neither does the ps5 controller, has it happened to you?
ziabice Apr 18, 2021
Because I have a 1440p display, but a not so beefy RX 580 4G GPU, I set the resolution to 720p and high details (so it's scaled directly by my monitor and is not blurred as a 1080p rescaled). The game run butter smooth for less than an hour, then it collapsed eating all my RAM (16GB + 4GB swap) and I had to reset the PC. I'm using Mesa 21.0.1.

Since then I haven't started the game again.
Leopard Apr 18, 2021
Quoting: ziabiceBecause I have a 1440p display, but a not so beefy RX 580 4G GPU, I set the resolution to 720p and high details (so it's scaled directly by my monitor and is not blurred as a 1080p rescaled). The game run butter smooth for less than an hour, then it collapsed eating all my RAM (16GB + 4GB swap) and I had to reset the PC. I'm using Mesa 21.0.1.

Since then I haven't started the game again.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/4652
Rooster Apr 18, 2021
Quoting: EikeLinux users like "give us big native games!".

Publisher gives big native game, Linux users like
* "It's not on Gog, I wont buy it!"
* "It has been on Epic store, I won't buy it!"
* "It's got an NVidia logo in the intro, I won't buy it!"
* "I already bought it months ago when it was Windows exclusive, I won't buy it!"

True, but there are also Linux users who buy it despite not having time to play it, so it evens out a little bit.
KuJo Apr 18, 2021
Quoting: EikeLinux users like "give us big native games!".

Publisher gives big native game, Linux users like
* "It's not on Gog, I wont buy it!"
* "It has been on Epic store, I won't buy it!"
* "It's got an NVidia logo in the intro, I won't buy it!"
* "I already bought it months ago when it was Windows exclusive, I won't buy it!"
Not quite correct ... if the publisher had released the game on Steam as originally planned, instead of making it Epic-exclusive for 1 year, then you would have been able to
a) been able to play with Proton from the beginning (much easier at least). And
b) the native Linux build would probably have come much earlier ... precisely because Steam offers the infrastructure for it (Epic and the others just not).

Therefore, the publisher's decision meant a big disadvantage for Linux players in terms of availability of the game.
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