You may have seen the news recently that Overkill decided to stop supporting and updating their Native Linux build of PAYDAY 2. Well, they're now saying they will ensure it works with Proton.
For Steam Deck players, you shouldn't need to do anything, as it defaults to the Windows version running in Proton anyway. For desktop Linux players, you'll just need to force Proton in the right click menu Properties -> Compatibility section on the game.
Addressing some issues that have come up since the latest update including matchmaking problems, they included a section on the future of PAYDAY 2 running on Linux (and so Steam Deck too). Here's what they said:
Linux is a complicated beast. To get the game working on both native Linux and at the same time updating the older version of the diesel engine that PAYDAY 2 for Linux was using proved unfeasible. This was one of the things we spent the most time trying to solve, yet didn’t reach our goals in the end.
Linux players can still access the game using Proton, we’ll keep testing new updates with Proton to make sure it keeps working for the upcoming patches and releases.
So it's good news for people who don't care about what happens behind the Play button and just want to play their games. Support is what's important and they clearly say they're going to ensure it keeps working and will be testing it.
You could argue the issue wouldn't be a problem if they kept the Linux version on an up to date game engine, but there will be reasons why they haven't done this. We know that developers can see exactly how many players are in their games from each platform (Steam shows developers this), so they likely just saw there wasn't enough players using the Native Linux version to be worth ongoing support costs and upgrades.
I just tested it with Proton Experimental and it worked great.
You should also check out my recent YouTube video for some thoughts.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
they have supported linux natively for 7 years, we shouldnt punish then for daring to even trying to support us and not being able to.
imagine if other companies see this and think: this company supported an niche OS for years and still got backslash boycot in the end, they would rather not try at all.
Last edited by Lib-Inst on 16 June 2023 at 1:18 am UTC
I don't want linux gaming to become entirely reliant on proton as that still solidifies Windows as the definitive platform, but I don't think that'll really happen. With how things currently are, it's all about increasing market share at any cost, and reducing game devs workload to get their game's running on linux is working to accomplish this. I imagine as market share grows, porting tools will become more refined and engines will continue to keep up or add support, we'll reach a point that native porting to linux for most devs will both be trivial and profitable, if we keep it up hopefully we'll reach a point where they'll be porting games not to linux, but to windows, lol. I think It's important that we somehow completely ensure that software compiled today for linux can still be ran a decade from now, maybe not by default but via some sort of readily available compatibility packages.
I am sort of crossing my fingers that Microsoft bungles up really really bad soon, in some way that even companies reliant on their product will find unforgivable, like a huge price hike or locking users out of their own PC for having internet opinions, something that effects bottom lines more than switching to a new platform.
theannoyingfruit Jun 16, 2023
Quoting: BotonoskiI am sort of crossing my fingers that Microsoft bungles up really really bad soon, in some way that even companies reliant on their product will find unforgivable, like a huge price hike or locking users out of their own PC for having internet opinions, something that effects bottom lines more than switching to a new platform.I really hope so, but I wouldn't bet on this. In the past, MS was very good in finding the sweet spot of what they can force down peoples throats without loosing to much of their user base. They even made people buy new hardware in order to run Windows 11.
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