EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux - Steam Deck optimizations planned

I'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...

The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.

Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.

Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.

It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?

Gents… new game suffering from performance issues is not exactly hot news. Give it some weeks 👌

Sad statement to make but if you look at native ports that became broken over time due to 3rd parties porting them and it not being done inhouse by the devs themselves at least for those I rather prefer the devs ensuring it runs good on Proton/Wine instead. Even more so if that happens the Linux version usually just stays around on Steam even if the game runs well through Proton/Wine so Linux players get something totally broken instead, sometimes even the game versions lack behind without any clear notice that you get a worse experience with the Linux version. And if you require legacy (steam-)runtimes to run games on Linux there's not much difference than running it through Proton in my humble opinion. We still have way too many things getting broken on Linux through time, just remember the Steam/EAC glibc issue(s), or Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT) with the kernel and NVIDIA driver and so on.

I welcome all the work Valve has done to improve Wine with their Proton fork and for now I'm just happy when I don't need to boot into Windows to play a game. Though there's another storm on the horizon with games running on the deck but not on desktop Linux (Persona 5 on launch and Pentiment being recent examples - which got either fixed in the meantime or workarounds being implemented on the Proton side) but it's another thing worrying me.

Promising something in a Kickstarter campaign and then not fulfulling the promise is another cup of tea though but at least they offer refunds. I'd generally not believe in any peoples talks these days and rather wait for release.

Edit: To mention a real positive title in this regards and in regards to space games: X4: Foundations which is native, utilizing Vulkan and runs beautifully on Linux, they have their own custom engine though so they know their stuff and also do everything inhouse and with the latest (Beta) update they move their physics engine to the open-source Jolt Physics engine (developed on GitHub) which is also used in Horizon Forbidden West.


Last edited by tgurr on 7 April 2023 at 6:46 pm UTC

I'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...

The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.

Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.

Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.

It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?

This.
And as stated by Liam in the news "Despite repeatedly mentioning a Native Linux build would come, even as recently as mid February".
Come on...

I definitely find the epic side of this story much more worrying than anything the developer did. Proton is a good approach for running games, but there being a positive long-term trajectory for games on open computer systems is contingent on vulkan becoming more widely used. This article makes it sound like epic's attitude to this is basically "meh, fuck it" which makes proton seem unsustainable.

One less game to play.
Thanks proton.

You spelled epic wrong...

Nope, maybe Vulkan.
I can't see why, since they did not explained, they want E2 to run on Vulkan where Opengl worked so well in the first episode.
And, as I said, I already tried E1 under proton and performace was night and day versus opengl, in favour of the latter.
So thank you proton to help me cut my playlist.


Last edited by kokoko3k on 7 April 2023 at 6:32 pm UTC

I'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...

The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.

Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.

Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.

It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?

This.
And as stated by Liam in the news "Despite repeatedly mentioning a Native Linux build would come, even as recently as mid February".
Come on...

I disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:

1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.

This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.

My takeaway from this is that — once again — Epic Games is playing a role in the quality of Linux gaming.

I'm going to be pleased when Godot and other open source game engines eat that space. And I think they will.

And this is yet another reason studios need to stop using Unreal.. Unreal is destroying the industry slowly but surely.. most the half baked broken games we get now days are unreal games because with Unreal devs get lazy af and don't code squat.. more reasons to go back to the days of having actual programmers work along side artists to create games. Unreal has done nothing but make devs lazy over all and harms the industry


Last edited by tohur on 7 April 2023 at 7:24 pm UTC

I disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:

1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.

This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.

Sorry but you don't understand, the point isn't only a technical one.
You seem to find excuses where there are none...
When you promise a Linux version (or macOS), you do it from the start to avoid the maximum of issues, that was repeatedly said on this website from many people.
You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.
They lied to us dude, it's simple.

Bonus (as I posted in the forum "Crowdfunding page suggestions"): https://www.youtube.com/live/CxYPVee36sY?feature=share&t=3250
Dare to tell me this guy is honest...

But yeah, this time I learned the lesson: never a trust a dev even if they released their previous game on Linux. I'm tired of it and, UE4 issues or not, I don't think I'm the only one.

My takeaway from this is that — once again — Epic Games is playing a role in the quality of Linux gaming.

I'm going to be pleased when Godot and other open source game engines eat that space. And I think they will.

Do you know that Epic was a huge help in developing Godot 4, right? The $250k grant they gave Godot is paying the main developers' salaries for years (they are from Argentina and Brazil, wages are way lower than US/EU).

Seems we're in agreement then--they want to get out of the game engine business, I want them out of the game engine business, everyone will be happy.

Either that or they are fools who underestimate the potential of open source software even after all these years of it eating various lunches, and intended the cash as an empty PR gesture. I'm fine either way, really.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 7 April 2023 at 8:14 pm UTC

Oof just nearly bought this thinking it would have native Linux like the first one did. I guess I'll wait until they can be bothered with Linux support in Everspace 3. This is akin to developers releasing microtransactions updates a month after the reviews come out.

You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.

I hate to have been right, but I called this a while back when, despite talk of progress and how in their exact words supposedly during development "Unreal Engine 4’s Linux support is in a much better state", there was no sign of a non-Windows build for any beta or early access etc. I really think they just hit the Export to Linux (and Mac) button recently and found out that they'd have to put some work into it after all.

I backed the Kickstarter campaign for Everspace 2, based on my experience with the first one. I don't often care for playing games in early access, so I waited until the 6th for the full 1.0 release. I've already put in too many hours out of the last 24, and I have a few thoughts:

1) It plays very well on my system (Ubuntu 22.04, Ryzen 5600X, Geforce 3060 RTX, using Proton Experimental). I've played so far at 1920x1080 and all the graphics settings at maximum ("Epic"), and it's smooth and lovely to look at. I will likely tweak the balance of graphics settings and resolution to find a sweet spot, but no concerns at all so far.

2) The only crash/freeze I've had so far is when I received the first side mission, and there was a prompt to press Alt to see its location on the map. Doing so froze the game, and I had to close it down and restart it. Fortunately, the game saves checkpoints automatically whenever you enter a system, so I hadn't lost that much time. Viewing the map normally (pressing "M", or choosing the map screen in the in-game interface, cause me no problems.

3) Some of the user interface has been unclear so far. For instance, I think I had 6 hours in the game before I figured out how to spend Mainframe stacks to upgrade my attributes. There's nearly nothing calling that out on the screen. I have similar, albeit lesser difficulties following the crafting/modification menus. Better highlighting or graphical prompts would be welcome.

4) I'm having a lot of fun! I'm playing on the default difficulty, and I am finding it a little too easy - I'm likely to bump that up one notch for more of a challenge. But, the flying is great, the sense of speed when I fire the emergency boost is terrific, and the weapons are very satisfying. There is tons to explore alongside the story missions, and everywhere you go is packed with little secrets. On the first planet I visited,

Spoiler, click me

I went down a completely unmarked mineshaft that I spotted from the air, and found a derelict ship, piloted by a robot, that had been stuck down there for 130 years. I towed it back to the nearby mining base, and I hope something comes of that later

.

I will keep playing, there's tons to do and I have only just started to delve into some of the mechanics.

I disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:

1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.

This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.

Sorry but you don't understand, the point isn't only a technical one.
You seem to find excuses where there are none...
When you promise a Linux version (or macOS), you do it from the start to avoid the maximum of issues, that was repeatedly said on this website from many people.
You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.
They lied to us dude, it's simple.

Bonus (as I posted in the forum "Crowdfunding page suggestions"): https://www.youtube.com/live/CxYPVee36sY?feature=share&t=3250
Dare to tell me this guy is honest...

But yeah, this time I learned the lesson: never a trust a dev even if they released their previous game on Linux. I'm tired of it and, UE4 issues or not, I don't think I'm the only one.

Most likely is that doing the port once the game was complete worked for the first game, so they though in error that it would be the same with the new game, especially since they switched to Vulkan which works great on Linux. Of course they should have checked how well UE4 handles Vulkan on Linux before but then there are always lots of things that one could do.

In the end I don't really understand the outrage here. Are you guys on the "I will only buy native games" side arguing that they should have released the native version with horrible performance and have every Linux gamer switch to the proton version anyway due to the performance difference?

exit: of course I understand the outrage, I mean it was a kickstart goal that was met so they didn't deliver what was promised, should have worded that part differently.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 8 April 2023 at 12:59 am UTC

As Linux gamers, I think we should one more time praise Timmy, "the fighter for freedom", for supporting Linux with UE4 *that* good.

If it weren't Valve...

P.S. I still can not believe how people helped him in his holy quest of canibalizing the market by writing a Linux launcher for him...


Last edited by sudoer on 8 April 2023 at 12:32 am UTC

I disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:

1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.

This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.

Sorry but you don't understand, the point isn't only a technical one.
You seem to find excuses where there are none...
When you promise a Linux version (or macOS), you do it from the start to avoid the maximum of issues, that was repeatedly said on this website from many people.
You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.
They lied to us dude, it's simple.

Bonus (as I posted in the forum "Crowdfunding page suggestions"): https://www.youtube.com/live/CxYPVee36sY?feature=share&t=3250
Dare to tell me this guy is honest...

But yeah, this time I learned the lesson: never a trust a dev even if they released their previous game on Linux. I'm tired of it and, UE4 issues or not, I don't think I'm the only one.

Most likely is that doing the port once the game was complete worked for the first game, so they though in error that it would be the same with the new game, especially since they switched to Vulkan which works great on Linux. Of course they should have checked how well UE4 handles Vulkan on Linux before but then there are always lots of things that one could do.

In the end I don't really understand the outrage here. Are you guys on the "I will only buy native games" side arguing that they should have released the native version with horrible performance and have every Linux gamer switch to the proton version anyway due to the performance difference?

exit: of course I understand the outrage, I mean it was a kickstart goal that was met so they didn't deliver what was promised, should have worded that part differently.

Atleast for me, it's not not buy game, but not support them on kickstarter. Is good idea buying game years before release from developer who proved he is not trustworthy?

You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.

I hate to have been right, but I called this a while back when, despite talk of progress and how in their exact words supposedly during development "Unreal Engine 4’s Linux support is in a much better state", there was no sign of a non-Windows build for any beta or early access etc. I really think they just hit the Export to Linux (and Mac) button recently and found out that they'd have to put some work into it after all.

I think this is important to note. They were originally waiting for Linux support to be in a better place on UE4 than it was. IIRC they had issues with the porting process with Everspace 1..... but you can't have an entire company, especially a small one, switch to a brand new engine on a whim, meaning they were kind of locked in at that point.

Sure, any dev team can learn a new language or tools as needed, but that takes lead time. There's a good chance that the margins on Everspace 1 didn't provide enough funds to pay devs to learn new tools and I can't imaging backers backing a kickstarter where part of the funds are to "learn" new tools

Atleast for me, it's not not buy game, but not support them on kickstarter. Is good idea buying game years before release from developer who proved he is not trustworthy?

Don't EVER PAY FOR ANYTHING ON KICKSTARTER AND ASSUME YOU'RE BUYING ANYTHING. Kickstarter is very, very clear in their notice that you are "Not preordering a product, but funding the possibility of that project being completed". It's on a big banner at the end of every project's campaign page. You are for all intensive purposes a "light" investor in the product and your return is a completed product rather than a stake in the company..... if it makes it to fruition. You are taking a risk on the project basically, not buying something.


Last edited by EagleDelta on 8 April 2023 at 2:03 am UTC

Promising something in a Kickstarter campaign and then not fulfulling the promise is another cup of tea though but at least they offer refunds.

If they'd promised it, not delivered, and not given a refund, that would be fraud, so... they had to give refunds.