Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has now released on Steam, and at least when it comes to AMD GPUs, it seems to be currently a no-go and just doesn't run with Proton on Steam Deck and Desktop Linux.
Testing on my Kubuntu 24.04 desktop across Proton 9 and Proton Experimental with an Radeon RX 6800 XT on Mesa 24.1.1 and Mesa 24.0.6 nothing makes it work. It will attempt to load, and then nothing happens and Steam reports it has just stopped running. Even trying the community-made GE-Proton 9-7, same thing again. There's a bug report on GitHub with others reporting the same.
It might be possible with an NVIDIA GPU, but I haven't tested.
As for Steam Deck, it just doesn't work there either from the Steam release. Testing again Proton 9 and Proton Experimental, it won't launch. Checked across SteamOS 3.5 Stable and the current SteamOS 3.6 Preview with the same issue. Even if it did run, the performance in the open world is simply unplayable constantly below 30FPS and a mess on Deck as shown in various videos of people who got the Epic or Ubisoft version of it to boot.
Hopefully at least for desktop Linux, a future Proton update might make it playable.
If you want to try your luck check out the Steam page.
There are a number of other cons, in particular: published by Ubisoft, contains Denuvo malware, always-online, in-game purchases and numerous bugs. Add to that a hefty price tag of £114.99 (without discount) if you want the Ultimate Edition (or £59.99 otherwise).
Ubisoft are obviously not interested in Steam Deck (or Linux) anyway, so personally I wouldn't give them the coverage.
* (c) PC Zone magazine.
And now to find out that it doesn't even work in Linux anyway? Ugh...
Last edited by Mountain Man on 19 June 2024 at 2:39 pm UTC
Also...yeah...it's Ubisoft.
Quoting: robvvDenuvo malware, always-online, in-game purchases and numerous bugs. Add to that a hefty price tag of £114.99 (without discount) if you want the Ultimate Edition (or £59.99 otherwise).
And this is on top of the fact that Ubisoft is one of those studios that uses shitty AI tools to replace their good, albeit low-ranking, human workers.
All of this, in addition to the fact that AAA games aren't fun any more, is why some people are expecting the game industry to crash. These big names in the game industry have become too greedy and controlling. It's like they've forgot what makes video games enjoyable, and as a result they're creating products for an offshoot market which exists merely because the proprietors are famous, and capable of putting out products which have the appearance of being the apex of quality.
Game developers who focus on making enjoyable, non-enshittified games should be able to survive this game industry crash. For example: Larian, FromSoftware, id Software. And IMHO it would serve these big greedy craporations right to get knocked down a peg or two.
Last edited by Talon1024 on 19 June 2024 at 5:15 pm UTC
But if it doesn't work on Linux I guess it's off the table for now.
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