Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

CD Projekt RED Considering The Witcher 3 For Linux If SteamOS Takes Off

By - | Views: 82,707
Followers of the Penguin, Marcin Iwiński, one of the founders of CD Projekt RED, has spoken out about why the developer of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 has not yet shown any support towards Linux.

Citing an issue deemed a myth by many, especially by Ryan "Icculus" Gordon who took to busting this myth during the Steam Developer Days of 2014, Iwiński believes that if you are going to support Linux, you cannot simply pick one distribution to support. Instead, he feels that CD Projekt RED would have to take to supporting at least five.

Marcin Iwiński, CD Projekt REDFirst of all, we have a lot of respect for Steam and we think they are very, very good business guys and good gamer friendly guys and that's really, really important. We like what they are doing and with the Steam Box, if they will be able to deliver a cool console, definitely, we are interested in having a game there.

You know, one of the reasons we have not released The Witcher on Linux is that we most probably have to address five different versions of Linux and this is always terrible to support the quality of the games afterwards. The patches, the updates, and everything. If Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, call it SteamOS or anything like that, we would love to have our games there because, you know, the more people play our games, the better for us.


Source (from 1:29:16).

There you have it. SteamOS will somehow negate having to support five Linux distributions and defeat the beast that is distro fragmentation once and for all.

How do you feel about CD Projekt RED's reasoning? Will SteamOS bring the desired changes? I, personally, can only keep on hoping and ask you kind folks to keep on voting for GOG, sister company to CD Projekt RED and reseller of its games, to finally add Linux support. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Action, RPG, Steam
0 Likes
The comments on this article are closed.
47 comments
Page: «3/5»
  Go to:

Shmerl Feb 17, 2014
SteamOS won't solve any fragmentation issues more than other distros already do (whether they are illusionary or not). But it has one catch - marketing push by Valve combined with a gaming console. Which is a good excuse for CDPR to start supporting Linux. Let's hope they'll get in shape and we'll see Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 on Linux.

CD Projekt Red folks really surprise me with being so clueless on this subject. Usually they do proper research. I think it's complete unfamiliarity with Linux of their top management that is the problem here.

About dropping Windows - you don't need any Windows to play Witcher 1 and 2, they perfectly work in Wine. Witcher 3 will be a problem however, because it will use DirectX 11 and will be 64 bit. So native version would be really great.
Shmerl Feb 17, 2014
I don't see how SteamOS makes it any better if they want to support many distros. It's just another +1. If they want to support just one reference distro, they can do it already now (using Debian Stable for example). They don't need SteamOS for that (which uses the same Debian stable by the way).

In the past, GOG folks at least said they considered supporting Debian, Mint and for some reason Chrome OS (which is pretty weird, since stock Chrome OS does not support native applications, you need to unlock it in developer mode to be able to install native stuff).
Caldazar Feb 17, 2014
I'll be nice and say I see a certain learning effect.

To me that statement sounds like "Crap, I'm gonna miss the bus. Don't run, stay cool! I'll have to pay a fortune for a cab but at least the others won't laugh at me. I'll just tell them I prefer cabs to crowded busses."

Of course it makes sense to let others scout the territory if you're scared of it but now the best they can hope for is to become a "me-too" brand.

Well, "fragmentation" is obviously a smoke screen they are trying to hide behind.
Not that it is a non-issue, steam games run better on some distros than on others (OpenSuse, I'm looking at you!), but that's the problem of the Distros in question not Steam's.

GOG and CD Project know this. If not, if they really didn't get it by now, they're doomed.
BBB Feb 17, 2014
That's great to hear. I'm waiting for the game and want to play it on SteamOS/Ubuntu! Thumbs up!
Ivancillo Feb 17, 2014
I'm a bit disapointed.

They'll bring The Withcer 3 to Linux, but they'll do in Steam (DRM and game-as-a-service annoyners) and not in GoG.com.

I hope this is only at start, and when they realize Linux don't byte, jump fearless into it, adding support in GoG.com, not only to W3, but to all games in their cathalog that have a native Linux version.
FutureSuture Feb 17, 2014
Quoting: IvancilloI'm a bit disapointed.

They'll bring The Withcer 3 to Linux, but they'll do in Steam (DRM and game-as-a-service annoyners) and not in GoG.com.

I hope this is only at start, and when they realize Linux don't byte, jump fearless into it, adding support in GoG.com, not only to W3, but to all games in their cathalog that have a native Linux version.
If you read the article carefully, you'll find that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has not yet been confirmed for Linux. It is merely being considered. Only if SteamOS takes off will CD Projekt RED bring it to Linux.
manny Feb 17, 2014
Quoting: GuestAnd let's face it: Valve themselves don't care about Linux per-se. It's the only option available to them after the shenanigans microsoft was trying to pull. Prior to that, they had no plans to support Steam on Linux.

And who says they "cared" about any of the other OS's per-se ? all of them are basically a means to an end.

However when you see that you can start making a platform "your own", you start caring a lot more for it.

ALSO, a lot of technologies and drivers have matured.

an Army of indie developers have adopted open technologies (specially on Web and mobile) , html5, openGL, etc.

HIB, kickstarter and early access are helping fund those devs.

OpenGL is defacto in mobile and 4.x is feature parity with DX.

Android has inspired many of the new OSs and shown that there's life after Windows.

There's a lot of pieces in this chicken/egg puzzle, Valve is finally polishing and pushing those pieces and getting the mainstream (and bigger companies) to consider transitioning.
STiAT Feb 17, 2014
The only thing I can say is .. I'd like that. Please!

For my love for the sequel I'd probably go for a Windows installation again to play it though, but on SteamOS or how ever you call it .. wonderful. I'm sure I'll get it running on Debian/Tanglu as well myself (even though, I'm considering getting a "steambox" for the living room, but I'm yet undecided on that).
Shmerl Feb 17, 2014
Even though I like the series, I won't buy the game until they'll release a Linux version. Or in the worst case until Wine will support DirectX 11, whichever comes first.
commodore256 Feb 17, 2014
McCoy, Do you not remember when a sudo-apt-get remove gimp in Ubuntu would uninstall Gnome and Xorg? The only way to remove broken packages 100% is to have all of the dependencies in the same package like how when you install Gimp on Windows, it installs a local version of GTK. Also, GlibC changes have broken the old Loki binaries.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.