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.

Valve have released Danger Zone, a Battle Royale mode for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive along with it going free to play.

All existing players have been upgraded to "Prime Status", which is a special status for verified players and only matches you against other Prime players. To become Prime after this update, you need to either purchase Prime from the Steam page or "reach Rank 21 by earning XP and add an eligible phone number to your Steam account" according to Valve.

Considering how I’m quite a big fan (understatement) of Battle Royale type game modes, I’m really pleased Valve has done this. I think it’s important for Linux gamers especially, since BR isn’t something we have much choice on. There’s no Fortnite, no PUBG and any other game with such a mode is very niche. A platform missing one of the most popular things in gaming, isn’t a very attractive platform. So even if it’s not your cup, understanding that I think is important. So again, I’m extremely happy about this.

Danger Zone can be played solo, or in squads of two or three players. On top of that, it's mixing things up a little. As expected from Valve, they're tweaking it with their own special flavour.

The main hook, as with all Battle Royale games is that you only get that one precious life. You also don't start with anything, so you need to be extra careful. You need to hunt for equipment and avoid players until you're ready—or catch someone with their pants down whose hunting for equipment themselves. Over time the map area gets smaller and so you're forced together. The effect Valve has gone for this is different too, with missiles firing from some off-shore rig onto the map. From that, something spreads across sucking all colour and life away from the map and it does look cool.

Each player has their own personal tablet, which tracks player positions in an area and it also allows you to buy weapons and equipment which fly down to you from a drone:

The drone system is quite a highlight, not just for yourself either. You can shoot them down, starving your enemy of their goods or follow them to ambush an enemy. Additionally, you don't actually have to use the dropped items yourself. Is an ally running low? Order something for them. You can also upgrade your tablet a few times, with niceties like seeing where the safe area will be when the map shrinks again, seeing drone paths and so on.

You can also rescue hostages, by carrying them to a safe area which will give you an additional cash reward to buy even more equipment. Naturally though, this will make you a lot slower and more vulnerable to other players:

On top of all that, for those of you who like collecting in-game items, Valve will be giving away a "Souvenir MP5-SD | Lab Rats" to anyone with Prime status while earning 250XP in the Danger Zone game mode. That offer will run until January 9th, 2019 which is probably enough to give the game a little player boost. People do love their skins.

This is what I have been waiting for. An interesting Battle Royale game available on Linux with good support and since it's Valve it will no doubt work well on Linux. Not only that, it's likely going to actually be an active game, especially since it's free. I'm sure plenty of the existing CS:GO community won't be happy, but you never can please everyone. It's not like anyone's forced into it, the mode is separate to the rest of the game.

After playing a good few rounds—I like it. It's quite different to what's already out there, although CS:GO is showing its age a little. Even so, the mechanics seem to work quite well for it. I'm excited to see where they go with this, as they said they will continue to update it based on feedback.

See more on Steam and the official site for details. For info on the free to play status, see here.

I will have more on this in the coming week, frankly I'm too excited to keep typing.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
31 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
61 comments
Page: «3/7»
  Go to:

Cmdr_Iras Dec 7, 2018
Maybe its time to pick this up! Not that im any good at FPS games...
chris.echoz Dec 7, 2018
It also crashed at the black screen for me, with a segfault. Same thing with -nojoy.
Hopefully I can get it working at some point during the weekend.
Liam Dawe Dec 7, 2018
Make sure you log bugs on their official tracker: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/
MayeulC Dec 7, 2018
That pic on their website sure does make me think of Gordon Freeman:
Spoiler, click me

Nice thing, I'll make sure to try this out and discover what's all the fuss about Battle Royale games for :D
... When I have time to spare :/
sigz Dec 7, 2018
So I fixed the black screen (on archlinux) but I am not sure how. At first I saw the game complaining about missing "ifconfig" command (because there is no ifconfig on archlinux). So I created a dumb executable ifconfig script. But at the same time I remember I unplugged my gamepad. After that, game started correctly. After checking, crash seems to be caused by gamepad.
dvd Dec 7, 2018
I just played my first round (and won to my surprise). I didn't know what to expect of it, but after a round i think they've done a good job. They managed to make it so that the round was not too long, the map didn't feel overly big, yet i got lost at least 3 times on it. The drone system is clever too, the one guy camping the watertower with a sniper didn't get an enormous advantage.

It's a really fun mode, and thankfully not too long. However, i couldn't help feeling like this was something that could be much more awesome as the multiplayer part of HL3.
Exidan Dec 7, 2018
finally some battle royale that is not half-assed and and even on linux? yes please.
ageres Dec 7, 2018
It crashes for me too.
Liam Dawe Dec 7, 2018
Quoting: ageresIt crashes for me too.
Unplug and turn off any gamepads, then try again? Seems to be a theme with that breaking it for some.
chris.echoz Dec 7, 2018
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: ageresIt crashes for me too.
Unplug and turn off any gamepads, then try again? Seems to be a theme with that breaking it for some.
Doesn't work for me, unfortunately, as I didn't have any gamepads connected in the first place. At least that's what lsusb tells me.
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.