Overkill drops Linux support for PAYDAY 2

Very disappointed with this to be honest. Payday 2 was one of the first games I was amazed to have linux support, I played it so much at that point.

I understand their reasoning, though in my opinion it doesn't bode well for Payday 3.

I imagine a lot of the team's allocated to Payday 3, so it makes sense they probably just don't have the technical resources available to maintain multiple OS support in the engine. Better than them pulling the same old excuse of "Linux users are all hackers" or similar. At least it still works well with Proton, so nothing significant lost!

Very disappointed with this to be honest. Payday 2 was one of the first games I was amazed to have linux support, I played it so much at that point.

I understand their reasoning, though in my opinion it doesn't bode well for Payday 3.

Their reasoning is most likely not wanting to implement EOS into the native version, despite EOS having a native linux build. I can tell when Overkill are using PR speak to cover up for a a lie, and this is one of those times.

It's really frustrating too, It was a damn good port.


Last edited by Dribbleondo on 8 June 2023 at 4:36 pm UTC

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

That quote right there, that tells me that they kept the Linux codebase in a separate fork. That's bad praxis, that's objectively incompetent.

Forking the codebase to put in support for another platform is fundamentally wrong, and we see, time and time again, that this leads to the codebases growing apart with the developers not being able to keep up keeping them in sync, and then abandoning the other platform. 90% of the time were we had Linux support being wiped away was because of this very reason. Why aren't people learning? You don't do that.

Instead, you need to make portability a feature of your code outright, you need to make the same single codebase run on all the individual platforms. No forks, just one portable repository that can run everywhere. That's not new knowledge either, we've known that for decades!

At least it still works well with Proton, so nothing significant lost!

On the flip side we could look at it and say something is gained. Now that the steam deck is here and pretty much people are exclusively using proton to game on modern titles, the motivation to make their next game work on proton may be higher as it is not seen as a 'moving target' like Linux is often portrayed as by developers and it must be easier to test if their build works on proton.
Of course there is the issue with anti-cheat, but again given the success and popularity of the steam deck, hopefully they are now aware of this and make the adjustments necessary.

But did they EVER actually fix the mic issue with the Linux version?

I could write a whole book on what I think about what Apple is doing, but for the sake of my mental health and inner peace, I'll abstain :P

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

What I said still isn't wrong. If it was financially worth it, they would do it and they would have kept it up with other changes in the background. Debate the finer details of what it all would entail, and what they should have done, but the reasoning is exactly as I said and anyone saying otherwise at this point is deluded.

If it was financially worth it, they would do it and they would have kept it up with other changes in the background

So I guess I shouldn't have said "you're wrong", but "that's the wrong point to make"? Because, yes, if we had a higher market share, they might have done that, but it's still the wrong thing to do. Heck, I don't want them to do that.

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

That quote right there, that tells me that they kept the Linux codebase in a separate fork. That's bad praxis, that's objectively incompetent.

Forking the codebase to put in support for another platform is fundamentally wrong, and we see, time and time again, that this leads to the codebases growing apart with the developers not being able to keep up keeping them in sync, and then abandoning the other platform. 90% of the time were we had Linux support being wiped away was because of this very reason. Why aren't people learning? You don't do that.

Instead, you need to make portability a feature of your code outright, you need to make the same single codebase run on all the individual platforms. No forks, just one portable repository that can run everywhere. That's not new knowledge either, we've known that for decades!

Payday 2's lua is largely consistent to that of Windows. While there are Linux-specific pieces of code (and vice versa), it's not nearly to the extent you're implying here.

Ha, this is one of the games that came with my SteamOS running Alienware Steam Machine back when I got it years ago

Ha, this is one of the games that came with my SteamOS running Alienware Steam Machine back when I got it years ago

Time to RMA it! ;-)

Proton totally nuked this concept.

Not really.
That's still the best way by far to do cross-platform development.

At least it still works well with Proton, so nothing significant lost!

On the flip side we could look at it and say something is gained. Now that the steam deck is here and pretty much people are exclusively using proton to game on modern titles, the motivation to make their next game work on proton may be higher as it is not seen as a 'moving target' like Linux is often portrayed as by developers and it must be easier to test if their build works on proton.
Of course there is the issue with anti-cheat, but again given the success and popularity of the steam deck, hopefully they are now aware of this and make the adjustments necessary.

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

That quote right there, that tells me that they kept the Linux codebase in a separate fork. That's bad praxis, that's objectively incompetent.

Forking the codebase to put in support for another platform is fundamentally wrong, and we see, time and time again, that this leads to the codebases growing apart with the developers not being able to keep up keeping them in sync, and then abandoning the other platform. 90% of the time were we had Linux support being wiped away was because of this very reason. Why aren't people learning? You don't do that.

Instead, you need to make portability a feature of your code outright, you need to make the same single codebase run on all the individual platforms. No forks, just one portable repository that can run everywhere. That's not new knowledge either, we've known that for decades!

While that is a terrible way to perform development it unfortunately is quite the norm. The studios do this with basically every single port, be it for the switch or ps5, which ultimately leads to them having several different versions of the same game instead of a single codebase where fixes for one platform means fixes for all. The reason of course is that it is initially much easier to do it this way, aka write your game for PS2 first then when it becomes popular send off the entire codebase to another company to port it to the Gamecube and once Gamecube is no longer a viable platform management can happily terminate that contract and the code is thrown in the can.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 8 June 2023 at 6:25 pm UTC

I imagine a lot of the team's allocated to Payday 3, so it makes sense they probably just don't have the technical resources available to maintain multiple OS support in the engine.

You'll be surprised when they have the technical means for the macOS version.

Proton totally nuked this concept.
There is only one platform for personal computer gaming and it's DirectX.
Even Apple gave up dedicated ports, they went fully Wine.

There's just one distinction here. I'm with you up to "there is only one platform" (in context of Proton being a disincentive for native) but that would be Windows. There have been Vulkan (and OpenGL) games for Windows. Wine/Proton doesn't need to do those particular API translations in that case. Proton didn't cause that.

Now... who is going to be nuking adoption of the beloved Vulkan API? Why, Microsoft of course. Buying up those big game companies that were implementing Vulkan. I'm especially sore about Bethesda/Zenimax and all under their auspices.

So yeah, DirectX. We've got a good, free, open API in Vulkan, which has better implementations than OpenGL ever did on Windows. But DirectX.

Oh, Microsoft will make a show of plugging into Vulkan, with new extensions (mostly for their own benefit). Beware them embracing anything, because they'll want to change it.

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

What I said still isn't wrong. If it was financially worth it, they would do it and they would have kept it up with other changes in the background. Debate the finer details of what it all would entail, and what they should have done, but the reasoning is exactly as I said and anyone saying otherwise at this point is deluded.

But if you make keeping the platforms in sync, a little horror job, you also need more money and thus more sold copies.
Aka if oyu do it right it is more or less a bonus in terms of copies sold. And if you do it right, you're probably doing a lot of other things right in development.

The ugly truth is, if you can't maintain mulitplattform software proberly, you should get another job. Microsoft comes to mind...

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

That quote right there, that tells me that they kept the Linux codebase in a separate fork. That's bad praxis, that's objectively incompetent.

Forking the codebase to put in support for another platform is fundamentally wrong, and we see, time and time again, that this leads to the codebases growing apart with the developers not being able to keep up keeping them in sync, and then abandoning the other platform. 90% of the time were we had Linux support being wiped away was because of this very reason. Why aren't people learning? You don't do that.

Instead, you need to make portability a feature of your code outright, you need to make the same single codebase run on all the individual platforms. No forks, just one portable repository that can run everywhere. That's not new knowledge either, we've known that for decades!

You know what would be hilarious? If WSL2 and some Mac layer actually got to the point of being performant enough for gaming... and everyone just switched to doing Linux Native games, as they'd just work on Windows and Mac anyhow.

R.I.P. Payday 2.


Last edited by AsciiWolf on 8 June 2023 at 9:02 pm UTC

Well I am sad I will not be able to go back and play PayDay2 when I upgrade my GPU.
I cant say it was a fun experience trying to play Payday2 on my ancient work laptop & trying to aim with a mouse pad.