I don’t believe the majority of steam’s offerings are available on Linux, definitely not without wine/proton/etc. as a layer, but I would be excited to be proven wrong on that. I also don’t love the idea of one company, even if they are proven to be magnanimous historically, being the main portal for all of that. Linux games need to be able to work reliably not on Steam as well.
Off the top of my head, I don’t think any of the major Sony PC releases play on Linux. the last of us, god of war, uncharted for sure don’t. Starfield doesn’t as another user said, or any Bethesda game over the last 15 years IIRC. Skyrim doesn’t, Fallout 3 and 4 don’t. Baldur’s Gate 3 can work for some distros but definitely wouldn’t qualify as “out the box” unless you’re on a steam deck.
They do work without steam. Steam has just streamlined the process.
And of course you’d need a compatibility layer (e.g. wine/proton). But those aren’t dependant on Valve. Even though they’ve definetly benefited from their involvement.
Again the sticking point to me is “majority of games.” Where are y’all getting that info? Very happy to be wrong here. I think it’s great to see Linux gaming growing.
Protondb also has some hard numbers. There are some 12000 games that are playable on the steam deck. Also something like 70%+ of the top 1000 steam games are platinum or gold rated which means they work out of the box with zero or minimal effort.
I’ve played Skyrim and Fallout 3 & 4 on Linux, and Uncharted. They worked just fine.
You need to enable Proton for all ‘unsupported’ titles in Steam (literally two clicks). After that…the only games I’ve found that don’t work are down to anti-cheat. I used to occasionally have to change the Proton version for some games, but it’s been a while since I had to do that.
It’s nothing like gaming on Linux was 10 years ago. It’s much more like gaming on Windows, the last time I did it: you occasionally find a game that needs tweaking, but 95% work flawlessly.
When you are in the store, it only puts the little icons right next to the game as a short hand for what it works on. So for instance if you go look up Elden ring you will only see the windows logo. My immediate reaction is “this is not playable on Mac OS or Linux.”
That’s probably because there’s no native linux client. Elden Ring runs great on Steam Deck (Valve even precompiled the shaders for the Steam Deck, because the PC port constantly compiles them on the fly, leading to stuttering)
I don’t believe the majority of steam’s offerings are available on Linux, definitely not without wine/proton/etc. as a layer, but I would be excited to be proven wrong on that. I also don’t love the idea of one company, even if they are proven to be magnanimous historically, being the main portal for all of that. Linux games need to be able to work reliably not on Steam as well.
Off the top of my head, I don’t think any of the major Sony PC releases play on Linux. the last of us, god of war, uncharted for sure don’t. Starfield doesn’t as another user said, or any Bethesda game over the last 15 years IIRC. Skyrim doesn’t, Fallout 3 and 4 don’t. Baldur’s Gate 3 can work for some distros but definitely wouldn’t qualify as “out the box” unless you’re on a steam deck.
They do work without steam. Steam has just streamlined the process.
And of course you’d need a compatibility layer (e.g. wine/proton). But those aren’t dependant on Valve. Even though they’ve definetly benefited from their involvement.
Again the sticking point to me is “majority of games.” Where are y’all getting that info? Very happy to be wrong here. I think it’s great to see Linux gaming growing.
You can check community reports on http://protondb.com
It’s an estimation since proton has made such giant leaps. When a new game releases, you can assume that it runs on linux.
Protondb also has some hard numbers. There are some 12000 games that are playable on the steam deck. Also something like 70%+ of the top 1000 steam games are platinum or gold rated which means they work out of the box with zero or minimal effort.
I’ve played Skyrim and Fallout 3 & 4 on Linux, and Uncharted. They worked just fine.
You need to enable Proton for all ‘unsupported’ titles in Steam (literally two clicks). After that…the only games I’ve found that don’t work are down to anti-cheat. I used to occasionally have to change the Proton version for some games, but it’s been a while since I had to do that.
It’s nothing like gaming on Linux was 10 years ago. It’s much more like gaming on Windows, the last time I did it: you occasionally find a game that needs tweaking, but 95% work flawlessly.
Huh interesting. Steam doesn’t show Linux as supported for them. TIL
It shows SteamOS/Steam Deck compatibility usually. Which boils down to any Linux with Proton.
When you are in the store, it only puts the little icons right next to the game as a short hand for what it works on. So for instance if you go look up Elden ring you will only see the windows logo. My immediate reaction is “this is not playable on Mac OS or Linux.”
That’s probably because there’s no native linux client. Elden Ring runs great on Steam Deck (Valve even precompiled the shaders for the Steam Deck, because the PC port constantly compiles them on the fly, leading to stuttering)
I know but they’re the ones who have a Linux compatibility icon lol
I’ve played Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 on Linux and both work fine.