For those of you curious on what's happening with EVERSPACE 2 for Linux, ROCKFISH Games have given an official update on what to expect.
In a post on Steam and Kickstarter, they made it clear that Linux support and Steam Deck are priorities for them to be supported. As they said having it playable "natively on Linux is high on our priority list" although there can always be unforeseen issues as they learned porting the first game to Linux but "overall Unreal Engine 4’s Linux support is in a much better state, now".
However, they're clear that "PC" (they mean Windows…sigh) is their "top priority" right now since it's the biggest set of users and a few weeks will still be spent on Windows players before shifting over to Linux. They're "reasonably confident" on Linux support at the 1.0 launch.
Direct Link
As for Steam Deck specific support they said they're also hoping for that at the 1.0 release but it's a lot more work due to optimizations needed, and changes needing to be made to the text size and UI for the smaller screen. Plus, Steam Deck was not part of their Kickstarter promises so it's a lower priority. They said trying it on Steam Deck right now is a "pretty OK time" but they want to aim for the experience to be of a higher quality.
If I hear of any changes, I'll let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You can tell how wrong this is by the fact that UE4 has better windows support, yet they still have to put so much time in to make it work well.
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
Honestly, if I had to pick between hitting a release date and delaying it for a few weeks for a small userbase, I'd go with hitting the release.
As long as they don't do the CA way of "patches on Linux arrive a few months after they arrive on Windows" (making the Linux native version essentially useless for anyone using mods), all is good.
benstor214 Feb 15, 2023
As in “of the two audiences of PC players (Linux + Windows) the one that uses Windows is larger”?
I may point you to the fact that English is not my native language, so I could be mistaken.
Quoting: ShabbyX"UE4 supports Linux very well, we've never tested it, but it's going to be fiiiiiine"
You can tell how wrong this is by the fact that UE4 has better windows support, yet they still have to put so much time in to make it work well.
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
They support linux in EVERSPACE 1, so I expect they know what supporitng linux means.
Quoting: ShabbyXThen reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
Not fair towards this particular developer since they proved with the first one that even if it is a non-trivial task, they still do it. Unlike a lot of other developers that simply cancel the port.
Quoting: Jarmerdoesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
The more games that support Linux the better the developer ecosystem becomes.
Quoting: KohlyKohlQuoting: Jarmerdoesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
The more games that support Linux the better the developer ecosystem becomes.
I suppose you're right ... oh how nice it'd be for linux native to be the default, then "windows support" later on lol.
QuotePlus, Steam Deck was not part of their Kickstarter promises so it's a lower priority.I appreciate people who think that "what they promised" is an important factor.
Quoting: Jarmerdoesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.As KohlyKohl points out, without people using Linux tooling, those tools don't get tested, those tools don't get bug fixes, those tools don't get extended to do new and useful things. As people that use the Linux ecosystem we benefit enormously from lots of other people also using the Linux ecosystem. Visibly breaking that PC = Windows nonsense also builds a virtuous cycle for things like manufacturer hardware support.
From the game developer side, though, those that see testing/QA as a means to make their software better rather than as a cost centre see benefits from having a Linux build without considering any additional sales: having your software run in different environments gives you additional insight into what it's potentially doing wrong, which makes it much quicker (and therefore also much cheaper) to track down bugs that will affect all platforms. Linux gets you that for free - you don't need to buy an additional SDK, just boot Linux on the testing hardware you already have. A number of game developers have highlighted those benefits to their workflow. Plus Linux users are much better at writing useful bug reports.
Last edited by CatKiller on 15 February 2023 at 7:07 pm UTC
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