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Introversion classic Darwinia gets remastered with better Steam Deck support

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Darwinia was originally released back in 2005, and now Introversion Software has done a massive remaster.

What is it? Darwinia combines together fast-paced action with strategic battle planning. It features a novel and intuitive control mechanism, a graphical style ripped from 80's retro classics like Tron and Defender, and a story concerning a tribe of nomadic sprites trapped in a modern 3D world.

"Fully re-mastered in 2022 to celebrate the Darwinian's 10000 anniversary this updated version brings an undisputed indie classic bang up to date. Running seamlessly on all modern systems, the game hasn't aged a day and is a fresh and relevant now as it was when it first dropped. Winning 3 out of 5 prizes at the IGF including the Seamous McNally Grand prize for Best Independent Video Game and multiple editors' choice awards, now is the time to play one of the most critically acclaimed indie games of all time."

The developers have rewritten the graphics engine and it now supports OpenGL 3.3 core, Direct3D 11, Metal, or Vulkan thanks to ANGLE. Other big changes includes:

  • All the in-game UI now scales more appropriately with the size and DPI of the monitor it's running on
  • Support for anti-aliasing modes including MSAA, SSAA, SMAA, and FXAA
  • Support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (FSR)
  • Support for anisotropic texture filtering
  • Higher fidelity colors and tonemapping
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Some other pretty big additions like Cloud Saves and Dynamic Cloud Sync, on-screen keyboard support and good defaults for the Steam Deck are all in. Various performance improvements plus lots of bug fixes to input handling, graphics, AI and so on too.

You can also see the team have a long chat about it below:

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Available on Steam or the Introversion Classics Pack on Humble Store. Sadly GOG do not have the Linux version.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Native Linux, Steam Deck, Indie Game, RTS, Steam, Strategy, Update | Apps: Darwinia
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14 comments

scaine Apr 19, 2022
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I loved my time with Darwinia. I remember it being one of the first games I played on Linux that made me think "wait a minute, this "linux gaming" malarky might actually have legs!" it was that good. Lovely to see an remaster.
ridge Apr 19, 2022
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Woah, neat. Darwinia was one of the first indie games I played way back, and I recently picked it up on GOG a few days ago. What odd timing, looking forward to trying it again!
jordicoma Apr 19, 2022
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What? "A forgoten classic"? It's an icon for me. I'ts not forgotten. It's one of the first (non-open source) games that I played on linux, at the time that there weren't many. It was like magic, a really good 3d game running on linux.


Last edited by jordicoma on 19 April 2022 at 6:27 pm UTC
BalkanSpy Apr 19, 2022
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I remember playing this game as a kid. I really liked it even if I didn't know what I was doing most of the time.
Anza Apr 19, 2022
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Darwinia must have been one of the first Humble Bundles long time ago. Looks like I have never played it on Steam, but at least now there's excuse to launch it. Might be still fun.
Linas Apr 19, 2022
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Oh, I remember messing around with Darwinia back in the day. Couldn't figure out what was happening, or what I was supposed to do?
UncleSpanky Apr 19, 2022
Was Multiwinia also remastered
Anza Apr 19, 2022
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Quoting: UncleSpankyWas Multiwinia also remastered

As far as I can see from Steam news and fixes, nothing has been done at least yet. The linked long chat might reveal something, but I haven't watched it.
MayeulC Apr 20, 2022
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One of my favorite games. Nice!

Quoting: Anza
Quoting: UncleSpankyWas Multiwinia also remastered

As far as I can see from Steam news and fixes, nothing has been done at least yet. The linked long chat might reveal something, but I haven't watched it.

No mention of it in the video. I haven't played Multiwinia yet, I hope it gets the same treatment one day!
sub Apr 20, 2022
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Wonder why they didn't update

DEFCON: Everybody Dies

given the current situation.


Last edited by sub on 20 April 2022 at 11:57 am UTC
Anza Apr 20, 2022
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Quoting: subWonder why they didn't update

DEFCON: Everybody Dies

given the current situation.

I saw interesting video about it. Apparently there have been study about how the game effects people.

As for remastering, it really might not need more than Darwinia. Graphical style is intentionally simplistic after all.
sub Apr 20, 2022
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Quoting: Anza
Quoting: subWonder why they didn't update

DEFCON: Everybody Dies

given the current situation.

I saw interesting video about it. Apparently there have been study about how the game effects people.

As for remastering, it really might not need more than Darwinia. Graphical style is intentionally simplistic after all.

Wow. Thank you!
Nod Apr 21, 2022
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This game was one of my first purchases on steam shortly after the Linux client was released:

Quote24 Dec, 2012
Serious Sam 3 BFE
Red Orchestra
Darwinia
Multiwinia
Killing Floor

Probably time to give it another go :)
KuJo Apr 22, 2022
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I bought it back in 2006 (when it was still on Windows) and played through it.
Well, now I downloaded the remastered version and played through it again. In two evenings. According to Steam 15.5 hours of playtime. When you start, you can hardly stop.
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