Here we are, the year is ending so here's a few of what I consider to be my favourite games played on Linux that had a release during 2021.
As always, these are highly personal and are only based on what I actually played. There's masses in my backlog I haven't yet, that I will likely kick myself during 2022 for not getting around to earlier. The trouble is also, that most of my favourites were released back in 2020 and earlier - because newer simply isn't always better! So many games had huge upgrades across 2021 too that sucked me back in. However, these are my personal standouts.
Valheim
I had to include this, to not do so would be a big fat lie. Valheim is absolute magic from such a small team and absolutely absorbed me for a great many hours. I woke up wanting to play it and went to bed thinking about what I would be building next or what I would discover next. Valheim is a great example of how games don't need to have next-gen AAA ray-tracing realism.
Playing Valheim was truly a breath of fresh air. Such a sense of freedom, with no real goals to achieve outside of taking down bosses. While you do progress towards that as you go, it doesn't feel like it ever pushes you to do so. It doesn't really push you towards anything and that's why I like it so much. The scale of it is impressive too and I truly cannot wait to see more from it. For a year that in many ways offered so little fun, Valheim was a needed break.
The co-op aspect of it too is excellent. While you can play it alone, and I've done plenty of that, sailing around with friends in a big boat is an absolute blast. Just watch out for those dastardly Deathsquitos, they'll get ya.
Also, the Swamp is thoroughly spooky at night.
Valheim is available to buy on Humble Store or Steam. Linux native.
Loop Hero
Even the demo of Loop Hero had me totally hooked on it. It really doesn't look like much at all and the pixel-art isn't even especially great on it but it does still look good enough. The pull though is quite literally - the loop. A game that requires you to do the same thing over and over again to progress in it, which might sound a little boring but it's so finely-tuned to get you to keep doing it. What's really going on? You want to find out.
Build up a deck of cards that you place down to change the world, while your little hero travels around a loop battling creatures and collecting equipment. It's weirdly intoxicating. Then there's the parts outside of the loop, where you build up a little village and unlock more of the game from cards to characters. Then you realised there's lots of secrets to find and — it just keeps looping in your mind.
You can buy Loop Hero on GOG.com and Steam. Linux native.
Voxel Tycoon
Honestly I end up burning out pretty quickly on games that need you to keep building up and micro-manage business stuff but Voxel Tycoon is something that feels a bit special. In some ways, it feels like a next generation of Transport Tycoon. Not quite hitting every mark on that just yet but the promise it showed right out of the game was remarkable.
There's a lot you can build in it already and the world can be huge, although to really hit the promise of the infinite world, it's going to need plenty of optimizations.
You can buy Voxel Tycoon on Steam. Linux native.
Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
Another game that's very much like Loop Hero, with a supremely satisfying loop that makes you itch to come back for more. Catching me thoroughly by surprise with the weirdness, it's a mixture of a dungeon crawler with an auto-battler where you build up a squad of completely ridiculous people from someone wielding Excalibur stuck in the stone to someone that looks like Dr. Otto Octavius from Spider Man, there's a lot of very fun variety here.
You can buy Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder on Humble Store and Steam. Linux native.
I imagine things are going to look very different by the end of 2022 and not because I'm expecting anything in particular in regards to new releases. With the Steam Deck approaching, which I am thoroughly excited for, I do honestly expect my gaming habits to change a little with it as it's a device I can genuinely see myself using plenty. The amount of evenings I've wished for such a device to relax elsewhere with - what joy it will bring.
What did you enjoy the most for gaming on Linux during 2021? Let us know in the comments and perhaps a bored reader can find their next favourite.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Valheim ofcourse!
Discovered some good Portal2 mods and had some great time with:
Portal Stories: Mel (Just awesome how well made it is)
Portal Reloaded - It sure forces you to use your brain!
Raft. Picked it up couple of times with my friend again. It's a great coop game, not so interesting in single player.
Black Mesa. Not my first playthrough. I still love the redesigned Zen and cannot get enough of it.
OpenTTD. I always tried to find a good recent transport sim but eventually discovered that this is actually still very good and played that instead.
Logic World. Being in the beta group i kinda had to but i still love these type of games too!
7 Days to Die. It seems like every year this comes up at one point. Good that it still gets updates to keep it fresh.
Infinifactory, That's just my type of game and i keep playing it through again to see if i can make something better than before.
Recently i also picked up Farming Simulator 19 and Far Cry 5 on sale and have been playing them. To my surprise FS19 suddenly took all my gaming time and now it already has almost 90h gametime!
Not many fresh and AAA games in my list but i don't mind. I have limited time to play and if i do i rather use the time to play something i know is good than try to experiment and see if something suits me. Sometimes i have to, else i wouldnt find any new games at all but i usually let other people do the main work and i read reviews before getting into something! :)
Last edited by woox2k on 21 December 2021 at 10:41 pm UTC
Valheim, same as a bunch of other entries. Nothing really unusual there.
Brogue Community Edition, just as hard as ever. Didn't get any further than ever either. But a great game nonetheless, and nice to see it's now being maintained by players to stay up to date.
Pillars of Eternity, took another stab at this one. Got way further, but then petered out a bit after the big fire. Might go back and finish if there's not much left but idk. Once a game loses my attention, it's usually a while before I go back again and try to remember the mechanics.
Stardew Valley Speaking of. Still a great experience.
The Garden Path Been sampling the backer beta on Itch, while trying not to see too much of it since I want to get the full experience when it's done. Lovely experience, seems like it's going to be a real winner for people after that comforting cottagecore-without-the-cottage aesthetic.
Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Finally dipped into this one. I'd had it in my library for a bit, but procrastination got the better of me. Quite good and it stands up well today. I gather that a lot of missions aren't great for singleplayer, so I'm not sure what to do once I eventually finish the intro Waterdavian story.
Caves of Qud Recently got back into this after a long hiatus, and there have been a lot of changes, particularly to the early game that needed considerable work. It's still a hard game, but the addition of Roleplay mode which saves checkpoints at settlements, and the addition of presets with higher survivability means it's much, MUCH easier for new players to get into it, and many experienced players to actually see any of the story past Golgotha. And believe me, there's quite a bit more story than there used to be.
Couple of Windows games via Steam Play here:
Dorfromantik. Bought by accident since the original version on Itch had a Linux version, but the updated version on Steam doesn't, at least not yet. The dev seems cool though, so there's a good chance of getting one in time. Fun chill tile-based puzzle game where you're not so much building a town as a pastoral countryside with little villages in it.
Subnautica Below Zero Much the same experience as the original Subnautica, but refined and some new wrinkles added. I expected I would hate the sea truck, but that turns out not to be the case, and it works thematically. There are still scary things in the depths.
A few other games here and there, but those are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Valheim - Great co-op game. Probably doesn't need much explanation here.
Bloons TD 6 - Lots of chill time playing solo or with my son.
Monster Train - Really enjoyed Slay the Spire for a while, but didn't really go back to that once I played Monster Train
Throughout the year (and previous years):
Civilization VI - Still my favorite installment in the franchise. Never really went back to V.
Starcraft 2 - Is just the exact expectations I have for an RTS game. Don't really play competitive like I used to. But play lots of the co-op missions and just co-op games with my son.
Factorio - Gaming group started focusing on completing achievements this year. Usually make a run on this every few months.
Later part of the year:
Age of Darkness - Final Stand - This game has consumed me. Nearly 40 hours in around a month.
Last Epoch - Technically played at the end of 2020, but just got back into a few months ago.
For The King - Another gaming group game. We have three of us which fits perfectly with For The King's gameplay.
I started Subnautica and got partway through, but now I'm a little lost as to what to actually do, so I've left it again.
And I finally got into Terraria. Fun game! but a slow burn to me; it took a few hours of frustration before it clicked.
Last edited by Janne on 22 December 2021 at 1:31 am UTC
For anyone who is interested though I keep a list on my icculus.org account of every game I have played since I graduated High School:
http://icculus.org/~hamish/gameslist.txt
Well correction: it might be a little over 1GB at most. But I think I still have a point.
Last edited by udekmp69 on 22 December 2021 at 5:19 am UTC
Another game I enjoyed a lot is Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. It's a short and silly game, but it's a lot of fun.
I also have to mention two games that went out of early access this year: Wildermyth and Vagrus - The Riven Realms.
The former is, in my opinion, a great game, if you like tabletop RPGs, but have no friends to play with. The tactical turn-based battle are very enjoyable, and the art style is unique and really makes the game stand out.
The latter is a very hard and harsh game that requires you to read a lot. The concept may seem a bit similar to The Banner Saga, but Vagrus is actually even harder, as there are more variables to take into account.
I still can't believe Valheim is under 1GB, yet you look at new games that don't even have nearly as much content that are now over 80+ GB of space. Valheim is a great game and stands out in a bloated genre of open world craft-a-thons.
Well correction: it might be a little over 1GB at most. But I think I still have a point.
There are few reasons why it's so small, biggest might be the procedural generation. On top of that models don't use lot of polygons and textures are not high resolution either.
Procedural generation can generate as big world as you need. The thing is though that if you don't have big enough pool of different things to add into the world, it will feel bit empty. On top of that, you have to make the model itself robust, so the map is actually fun to play.
At least in theory, by having static world that uses lot more disk space, it's possible to have something unique and interesting around every corner. Accomplishing something like that needs huge team and indie developers can't afford that.
My favourite new game this year was Clunky Hero.
(And in the wake of that, went through Alwas Legacy...)
I played the Clunky Hero demo and wasn't totally impressed. People seem to be liking it though so maybe it's just me as I don't get easily impressed by metroidvanias as one that I have ever finished is Dust: Elysian Tail. Hollow Knight was getting bit too frustrating, so I didn't finish it, but still played good chunk of it.
pleasereadthemanual Dec 22, 2021
In terms of my favorite games I played this year, regardless of release date, I replayed Celeste again (this time on Linux) for the first time in a few years. It's still one of the best games to marry gameplay and storytelling, with amazing music. It really speaks to me.
This year, I finished my first visual novel in Japanese, その花びらにくちづけを. I liked it, but by virtue of being my first Japanese visual novel, it's special for that reason alone. There might have been a few too many H-scenes, but the characters are likable enough, and the last CG makes the whole thing worth it in the end. I played the direct sequel (technically the 6th game in the series) as well, and it had more depth, but I didn't like where the story went in the end. 3rd game in the series is in progress now. The chronology of this series is confusing as hell.
I played a bit of 穢翼のユースティア, a game I've owned for almost 5 years at this point, but only recently became decent enough at Japanese to struggle through, and despite the DRM hiccups in the beginning with getting it working, I'm really liking it. It has a very unique atmosphere. I'm only a few hours in, but it's very intriguing.
Huh. I guess I haven't really played many games, this year. Need to read more visual novels next year.
Award of bug fest of the year... and the winner is: Cyberpunk 2077.Have you really experienced a lot of bugs in it? Did you play it right at launch then? Or on a console?
I've got some 300 hours in and am quite the contrary impressed how few bugs there are, not in any way more than any other open world game out there. Runs smooth too, even on my older graphics card. It's been my clear impression the issues were largely related to the consoles?
Last edited by Beamboom on 22 December 2021 at 1:17 pm UTC
I started Subnautica and got partway through, but now I'm a little lost as to what to actually do, so I've left it again.
If you're stuck where I think you are, you should have information from the gun tower telling you where other alien facilities are, and you should be ready to dive pretty deep to get to them, southwest of the wreck. Pretty much go west from the Degassi wreck and you should be able to find the way down pretty easy.
Thank you!
Terminator: Resistance and Annihilation Line. Loved it. Nothing new in terms of gameplay, but everything here is done well, and the franchise license is used incredibly well elevating the whole thing. Even puts you into multiple scenes from the Future War portions of the first two films. A standout is the first time you really have to face T800s and NONE of your weapons can even scratch them, forcing you to sneak and hide in a claustrophobic hospital or be gunned down instantly. It's SO TENSE, it's amazing.
Far Cry 5. Also mostly loved this. The setting is so similar to where I live in the Pacific Northwest that I felt right at home. The inclusion of multiple ammunition types allows you to use the guns you want instead of trading them out for more powerful ones in the second half of the game. I carried a 1911 through the whole game for instance, because it was effective for the whole game. Same with the bow. The endings SUCKED. I have no interest in New Dawn.
Wolfenstein : A New Order. I'm TRYING to like it. I just don't seem to.
Tacoma. Dear sweet savior, this was awful. SO BORING. It's a walking simulator featuring whiny dialogue where nothing interesting ever happens. You arrive, you clunk around, and then mercifully, it's over. I bought this hoping it would be like The Station which I found to be a stand out bit of storytelling, and TACOMA REALLY WASN'T. Avoid if you're lucky enough not to have played it.
Hi! What is the game on the thumbnail?
Thank you!
It's bit dark, but it looks like Valheim.
StalePopcorn Dec 22, 2021
Game referenced in thumbnail, Valheim?
That's what I said. If you know Valheim, it's quite clear. It's swamp at night, with bunch of skeletons attacking. One of the screenshots in the article is from Valheim too.
Thumbnail is clearly not from any other game discussed in the article.
XCOM:EW - very fun, I like the mix of story and random maps, even if I got a few repeated maps.
Witcher 1: Good Story. Feels a little more believable than the generic save the world quest line of other games.
Factorio: first play since it's "release". Very nice gameplay.
I think I gonna continue Factorio a bit longer and then move on to perhaps a strategy game. Not sure which.
walther von stolzing Dec 23, 2021
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