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PayPalSerious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is out now as a partnership between Timelock Studio and Croteam. It can run rather well on Linux, although you do need a quick adjustment for Steam Play Proton.
This is a much shorter and simpler game than previous entries, as it's a sort-of standalone expansion that sits together with Serious Sam 4. Although, going in cold is not a big deal, since it's mostly the usual mindless fast-paced shooting you would expect from a Serious Sam game. The game actually started off life from a modding team, who under guidance from Croteam, turned it into an official game in the series.
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Out of the box, it does work on Linux with Proton and so it will on the Steam Deck too. However, there's no sound. A quick fix is available though! All you need to do is go into the sound settings and select OpenAL as the output instead of the default XAudio. After that, it all works as you would expect.
Performance is a bit shaky though, which is true on Windows as well. Since it's using Croteam's game engine, you can swap Direct3D 11 for Vulkan in the Graphics options to get native Vulkan on Linux (instead of it going through DXVK). In my own testing (at least on NVIDIA), you're definitely going to want to hit the switch to Vulkan too, as it gave a boost of ~20FPS in most cases and was less stuttery too.
It clearly needs some more optimization as a whole though, as other players have also noticed the low GPU usage and micro-stuttering that's completely random even with nothing happening. Most of the time it's okay and good enough to run and gun your way through it.
You don't get much breathing space, your heart will be furiously pumping and your fingers may begin to ache as it's so fast. Perhaps a little too fast at times, everything feels like someone set a knocked a magical speed dial up. Honestly, it's like you're on roller skates but that is true of most Serious Sam games.
It does the job quite nicely of making you feel like the ultimate bad-ass with no filler — it's all action. Unless you count a few optional side-missions, which are still full of completely insane action. A few dumb one-liners too because what's a hero without that? If that's what you're after, it's thoroughly entertaining.
Available to buy on Humble Store and Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by sudoer on 26 January 2022 at 3:38 pm UTC
Somehow, Croteam just lost their magic between SS2 and SS3. No idea what happened there.
This standalone expansion, however, is pretty amazing and it shows it was developed by people who actually understood what made SS great to begin with.
Luckily implementing such magic in computer games is as easy as `*2`.
Last edited by ShabbyX on 26 January 2022 at 5:33 pm UTC
You can publish one or two versions for Linux, and discontinue it, which is still better than nothing.
Unfortunately, I can't buy a game for Windows, and I don't care how well it runs on Proton, Wine, etc. It's a fun game for Windows users.
However, I use Linux when I play games and rarely Mac. Be SERIOUS about your customers that don't want to use Windows.
Last edited by gbudny on 26 January 2022 at 10:21 pm UTC
To be honest I may buy it someday but if I have to consider Proton games there are much better FPS I should buy before even considering eyeing this one.
Quoting: omer666To be honest I may buy it someday but if I have to consider Proton games there are much better FPS I should buy before even considering eyeing this one.Better and smooth FPS (without stuttering and high system load) on Windows.
Ryzen 7 3700X gets only 30-40% Utilization and GTX 1080Ti 55-70%. Vulkan rendering.
Gameplay is kinda meh also, at least at the beginning of the game. Gunplay feels very weak and feedback is almost non existent. Specially shotgun. Explosions are good though and Sam jokes are pretty good in line with their earlier games.
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