Axiom Verge 2 lands on Steam with Linux support and Steam Deck Verified

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

That strikes me as a matter of perspective. If anything more of a good news story. I mean, it almost seems that you're complaining that it launches now and Valve has our back (even if Epic most assuredly does not, but like, we knew that).

That strikes me as a matter of perspective. If anything more of a good news story. I mean, it almost seems that you're complaining that it launches now and Valve has our back (even if Epic most assuredly does not, but like, we knew that).

No, of course I don't mean it that way! And, for what it's worth, I'm not claiming that I really understood what I was doing when I was trying to get it to run, it's entirely possible I couldn't get it to run because of my own stupidity.

I instead meant to express my general feeling of unease about Valve's dominance. I love the work they've been doing and supporting, but I don't want to be totally dependent on them. (Though this was merely a personal anecdote that may not be representative of the overall situation.)

That strikes me as a matter of perspective. If anything more of a good news story. I mean, it almost seems that you're complaining that it launches now and Valve has our back (even if Epic most assuredly does not, but like, we knew that).

No, of course I don't mean it that way! And, for what it's worth, I'm not claiming that I really understood what I was doing when I was trying to get it to run, it's entirely possible I couldn't get it to run because of my own stupidity.

I instead meant to express my general feeling of unease about Valve's dominance. I love the work they've been doing and supporting, but I don't want to be totally dependent on them. (Though this was merely a personal anecdote that may not be representative of the overall situation.)

I have never tried either of these games, let alone obtained via Epic, but, when trying to get the game running through Lutris, were you attempting to run it with WINE or Proton? Did you try configuring it outside of Lutris? I've never been a fan of Lutris myself. It's been hit or miss for me. I usually setup WINE or Proton directly (I'm a bit more elbow grease).

In regards to the worry of Valve dominance... my comfort is in the general understanding that Proton (the core tool Valve is using) is available independently of Steam and acts the same (as far as I'm aware) outside of Steam as within it. As such, barring a game directly utilizing Steam services which would effectively DRM it to Steam (which may be an issue, but that's aside from the game actually working on Linux) running the game through Proton directly should work regardless of whether it's through Steam or not. Hope that makes sense.

Axiom Verge is one of my favorite metroidvania games. I didn't even know there was a sequel (thanks Epic). Looking quickly at reviews, it seems like it is still good, although the combat might be easier. Has anyone here played it much?

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

This is why I mostly have given up on GOG, and have only once briefly given into anything on EGS, which I then refunded and bought later when it released on Steam. Epic's big middle finger to releasing stuff for Linux, except when it suits them makes me also give them a big middle finger.

Interesting. When this came out on Steam, the Linux version wasn't available. Then I saw the reviews and it was not encouraging. But now that I see that Ethan Lee is involved, I found a good justification to grab it, after all, his game track record with me is pretty good.

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

Hi, my first post here! Hello y’all!
I registered because I felt the urge to add my 2 cents on this…
While I completely agree why one can be wary of valve’s dominance on this segment of the market (linux gamers), I’d like to add the following thought: every single competitor of valve can start tomorrow with building up their support of Linux in a similar way as valve does. Not a single person or entity prevents them from doing so. They actively choose not to support Linux and by doing this, they leave the entire market segment to valve. Can you blame valve to take up the opportunity?
In my humble opinion, the “fault” (if you can speak of a fault) lies with the competition, i.e. GOG, Epic and all the other stores that don’t support Linux.
It’s valve’s competitors that allow valve to be the dominant actor here.

In other words: Linux gamers are customers waiting to be grabbed/served, you just have to support their platform. If you cede these customers over to your competitor, you have only yourself to blame.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? These are just my thoughts on the subject.
Now convince me that it was a mistake to register on this site. Haha :D

Edit: “this” customers *facepalm*


Last edited by benstor214 on 18 August 2022 at 6:47 pm UTC

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

Hi, my first post here! Hello y’all!
I registered because I felt the urge to add my 2 cents on this…
While I completely agree why one can be wary of valve’s dominance on this segment of the market (linux gamers), I’d like to add the following thought: every single competitor of valve can start tomorrow with building up their support of Linux in a similar way as valve does. Not a single person or entity prevents them from doing so. They actively choose not to support Linux and by doing this, they leave the entire market segment to valve. Can you blame valve to take up the opportunity?
In my humble opinion, the “fault” (if you can speak of a fault) lies with the competition, i.e. GOG, Epic and all the other stores that don’t support Linux.
It’s valve’s competitors that allow valve to be the dominant actor here.

In other words: Linux gamers are customers waiting to be grabbed/served, you just have to support their platform. If you cede this customers over to your competitor, you have only yourself to blame.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? These are just my thoughts on the subject.
Now convince me that it was a mistake to register on this site. Haha :D

I'm actually fairly down with that position.
Come to that, if Valve's Steam Deck and some other developments make Linux a bigger target, perhaps those others will start to compete for it.

In other words: Linux gamers are customers waiting to be grabbed/served, you just have to support their platform. If you cede this customers over to your competitor, you have only yourself to blame.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? These are just my thoughts on the subject.

I don't think that you're wrong - what you've described here is what happens at the beginning of market disruption. Linux users are currently part of what would be called the "crappy products for crappy customers" phase - that is to say, we're the tiny market that nobody wants to bother with, and even though we're ripe for the picking the other options are still largely ignoring us even though nothing is stopping them.

If you've ever read about the "Blue Ocean Strategy" (something that was popularised by the Nintendo Wii, which took this approach), what I'm paraphrasing is stuff from that.

Now convince me that it was a mistake to register on this site. Haha :D

Looks like you're one of us, now.

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

Hi, my first post here! Hello y’all!
I registered because I felt the urge to add my 2 cents on this…
While I completely agree why one can be wary of valve’s dominance on this segment of the market (linux gamers), I’d like to add the following thought: every single competitor of valve can start tomorrow with building up their support of Linux in a similar way as valve does. Not a single person or entity prevents them from doing so. They actively choose not to support Linux and by doing this, they leave the entire market segment to valve. Can you blame valve to take up the opportunity?
In my humble opinion, the “fault” (if you can speak of a fault) lies with the competition, i.e. GOG, Epic and all the other stores that don’t support Linux.
It’s valve’s competitors that allow valve to be the dominant actor here.

In other words: Linux gamers are customers waiting to be grabbed/served, you just have to support their platform. If you cede these customers over to your competitor, you have only yourself to blame.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? These are just my thoughts on the subject.
Now convince me that it was a mistake to register on this site. Haha :D

Edit: “this” customers *facepalm*

Kind of frustrating: I had tried pretty hard for months to get this game working on Epic (through Heroic and Lutris) but I absolutely could not get it to run. Then it releases on steam and it launches right away. This understandably makes me pretty nervous in general that I won't be able to get non-steam games running, which isn't a great feeling.

Hi, my first post here! Hello y’all!
I registered because I felt the urge to add my 2 cents on this…
While I completely agree why one can be wary of valve’s dominance on this segment of the market (linux gamers), I’d like to add the following thought: every single competitor of valve can start tomorrow with building up their support of Linux in a similar way as valve does. Not a single person or entity prevents them from doing so. They actively choose not to support Linux and by doing this, they leave the entire market segment to valve. Can you blame valve to take up the opportunity?
In my humble opinion, the “fault” (if you can speak of a fault) lies with the competition, i.e. GOG, Epic and all the other stores that don’t support Linux.
It’s valve’s competitors that allow valve to be the dominant actor here.

In other words: Linux gamers are customers waiting to be grabbed/served, you just have to support their platform. If you cede these customers over to your competitor, you have only yourself to blame.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? These are just my thoughts on the subject.
Now convince me that it was a mistake to register on this site. Haha :D

Edit: “this” customers *facepalm*

Pretty much this. It's like when I see the user percentage between Macs and Linux, especially when it comes to gaming. I don't understand why companies will still develop for the Mac and not develop for Linux. Apple is rather anti-competitive in any APIs you can use, at one point you could make your engine work in OpenGL and there were libraries for Linux, Mac, and Windows. But Apple wanted to break that by dropping any new versions, and pushing Metal. Not to mention trying to lock down to App Store installs, or making it increasingly annoying to download off of developer's home pages.

Linux more or less has always embraced being able to download and install some things. Granted, a lot of times you still have to read a README.md or maybe even copy/paste some command lines (scary!). But is getting extremely easy to add a new repo / flathub, etc.

But you're 100% right, Valve has more or less cornered the market. Even if GOG, Epic, etc wanted the player base numbers for how many would actually be interested in Linux versions... Gog only sort of can, as they could look at how many of their Linux native bundles are downloaded. But it isn't like Steam where they can easily get the exact numbers of Linux players.

I'm guessing, if the Deck is making enough sales, we'll sooner, rather than later, start getting native builds of the engines for things like Watchdogs, Assassin's Creed, etc. But that largely depends on how well the development tools work within the development organizations.

Following along the Launchbox forum posts, the devs there are convinced that Linux's develop tools are crappy and won't work for them. But I believe this is mostly due to their use of .NET, which has been all sorts of terrible for as long as it's been around.