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For those itching to play through another FPS, you might want to take a look at Deep Rock Galactic from Ghost Ship Games.

It recently had a free weekend on Steam, so making great use of it I decided to try it out for a few hours with Valve’s Steam Play and to my surprise it worked incredibly well.

Next to traditional real-time strategy games, first-person shooters are my favourite genre of games to dive into and have some fun. Sadly, Linux is extremely underserved when it comes to these types of shooters and so Steam Play can really help bridge the gap here.

It’s currently in Early Access and there seems to be no plan for a Linux version right now, with the only comment from the developer I can find on this on their Steam forum where they said "Hey there! We'd love to support other platforms in the future, but for now we are focused on the PC version.". So it’s another good testing case for how well Steam Play can run Windows games on Linux.

Here’s a look at it on Ubuntu 18.10 with Steam Play Proton 3.16-7:

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I’m amazed at how well it runs! Everything is incredibly smooth on the highest settings and it really does feel good. I was fully expecting it to stutter initially as a lot of games do with Steam Play while it builds a cache, but it was perfectly playable from the first moment of loading it up.

It's a bit like a mix of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead with how it feels overall, honestly that's the best way I can think of to describe the unique blend it offers. It has multiple characters, each with their own play-style and abilities with each having an upgrade path as well.

Once you've sorted out which character to play as, along with adjusting your load-out it's time to pick a mission. From there, you climb aboard your rather cool Drop Pod and each mission begins the same with you burrowing deep into the ground, something I will never get tired of seeing. As your ship smashes through the ground into an opening, it's time to explore!

They're coming outta the walls. They're coming outta the goddamn walls!

What's awesome, is that the cave system you enter is a randomly generated network and so it offers a huge amount of variety. The missions themselves are quite varied too as some want you to mine specific resources, while others want you to recover certain items.

During your travels, you will come across all sorts of weird and scary-looking creatures and it can be quite a challenge when a whole horde of them come down on you. Creatures can fly down, grab you and fly away with you requiring a mini-rescue mission from your comrades while they tackle creatures spitting acid, exploding, crawling across the walls and all sorts.

During the bigger firefights, things can get extremely chaotic. While a lot of it is exploration and mining, when you really get down into the combat it's incredibly intense. Enemies coming from all sides, explosions and bullets everywhere—it's nuts.

For those who do prefer to play alone, it's still good as you don't have to play it with others which is another point in its favour. If you do solo play, you will be given a helpful flying bot which you can upgrade too.

One thing I have noticed with a lot of Steam Play games, is I often get no mouse cursor with the Steam Overlay. A little workaround for that, at least with the GNOME desktop is to hit the Super key (the Windows button) which will make it appear again (thanks Scaine!).

Without Steam Play, I would likely have never experienced it. Since I enjoyed it so much, I picked up a personal copy as I can see myself happily playing it regularly. There's tons to love about it.

You can find it on Humble Store and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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.
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scaine Mar 4, 2019
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Ended up buying this at the sale price after playing it over the weekend for free. It's really engaging. The voice acting is a bit over the top and cringy, but that's maybe because, as a Scotsman, they sound very "fake Scottish" to me. But, hey, they're dwarves. They can have a fake Scottish accent if that works for them.

Great game though. Lots of levelling, perks, classes, equipment upgrades. Nice combat, nice variety in mission objectives. Yeah, I really like it!
Gobo Mar 4, 2019
Played it for over 8 hours as well after having watched some co-op videos from closed alpha about two years ago. I especially liked the utility of the Bosco drone that accompanies you in single player mode. It's just a bit sad that they didn't implement more navigational tools beside from a push-and-hold mini map and non descriptive marker system in what is an exploration game at heart. I would have loved to get a spherical compass with horizon display and maybe even a depth meter. That could be an awesome wrist gadget. Also, a way to bring up current mission status with a rundown on stuff collected instead of having to pick something up and interact with the mule would be a welcome addition as well.

While I like the game interfaces presented by terminals in the main hub, I'd like them to differ some more, to tell them apart more easily. And please make the game explain progression better! There seems to be a difference between character and player levels, but while you can see character level progression as the top chevron at the red level sign, the blue player level remains a mystery. Even the highest rated and extensive community guide did not cover that.

I had one major technical issue with the game after about 90 minutes into one mission. I guess the mouse focus on the full screen game display got lost, as it started to stutter badly and bring up minimized windows on my secondary screen or even the normal steam friend list and chat windows right over that game display. I did not want to lose my haul, so I endured slowdowns as bad as one frame per several seconds with constant sound loops, even survived a critter wave that way. That payed off, as the game recovered to normal speed after about 20 minutes of painstaking poor progress through difficult terrain under those circumstances and I was able to reach the drop ship and escape. Luckily I did not push the call escape pod button before the lag fest, as I knew it was a long way back to the top and worked my way back up without the donkey guiding me under the pressure of the 5 minute timeout.
Nanobang Mar 4, 2019
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Quoting: liamdaweDeep Rock Galactic ...works great in Steam Play


That's all I needed to hear ...

There, I just bought it.

This has been on my wishlist since it first came to Steam. It's successfully navigated the swamp of Early Access, not drown nor been sucked down into quicksand, so the only other thing I was waiting on was a deep discount since it was a Windohs only title.

But hey-presto! It's playable on Linux (thank you Steam Play and Wine and the Blind Dancing Gaming Gods of Caprice) so the little man in my head flipped the switch labeled "OH SHIT! BUY IT NOW!" and I did.

They ought to give you a percentage of my sale, Liam. From your lips to their wallets.


Last edited by Nanobang on 4 March 2019 at 1:38 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Mar 4, 2019
Quoting: Nanobang
Quoting: liamdaweDeep Rock Galactic ...works great in Steam Play


That's all I needed to hear ...

There, I just bought it.

This has been on my wishlist since it first came to Steam. It's successfully navigated the swamp of Early Access, not drown nor been sucked down into quicksand, so the only other thing I was waiting on was a deep discount since it was a Windohs only title.

But hey-presto! It's playable on Linux (thank you Steam Play and Wine and the Blind Dancing Gaming Gods of Caprice) so the little man in my head flipped the switch labeled "OH SHIT! BUY IT NOW!" and I did.

They ought to give you a percentage of my sale, Liam. From your lips to their wallets.
We do get a tip from GOG and Humble using our links, sadly Steam has no partner program.
Nanobang Mar 4, 2019
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  • Supporter
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: Nanobang
Quoting: liamdaweDeep Rock Galactic ...works great in Steam Play


That's all I needed to hear ...

There, I just bought it.

This has been on my wishlist since it first came to Steam. It's successfully navigated the swamp of Early Access, not drown nor been sucked down into quicksand, so the only other thing I was waiting on was a deep discount since it was a Windohs only title.

But hey-presto! It's playable on Linux (thank you Steam Play and Wine and the Blind Dancing Gaming Gods of Caprice) so the little man in my head flipped the switch labeled "OH SHIT! BUY IT NOW!" and I did.

They ought to give you a percentage of my sale, Liam. From your lips to their wallets.
We do get a tip from GOG and Humble using our links, sadly Steam has no partner program.

INJUSTICE!
KuJo Mar 4, 2019
Quote... works great in Steam Play
... until EAC is implemented ...

Sorry, but a burnt child dreads the fire. It´s a multiplayer game and it is Early Access. Remember

SCUM
Paladins
Apex Legends (not Proton, but Wine)
...

I put it on my wish list, though. And I'll keep an eye on it.


Last edited by KuJo on 4 March 2019 at 2:58 pm UTC
Cybolic Mar 4, 2019
"no plan for a Linux version right now" ... "for now we are focused on the PC version." ...uhmm, but... isn't that the same thing? ;)
Termy Mar 4, 2019
I really don't get why they don't just make proton support official if it already runs perfectly...valve even covers the support, so the only thing they have to do is make sure patches don't break proton and collect my money...

Really enjoyed it on the free weekend and would instantly buy it - but not if it can stop working anytime due to not being offical...
Liam Dawe Mar 4, 2019
Quoting: KuJo
Quote... works great in Steam Play
... until EAC is implemented ...

Sorry, but a burnt child dreads the fire. It´s a multiplayer game and it is Early Access. Remember

SCUM
Paladins
Apex Legends (not Proton, but Wine)
...
This is a solo/co-op game, they really have no need for EAC and from what I read they have no plans to add it in either.
KuJo Mar 4, 2019
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: KuJo
Quote... works great in Steam Play
... until EAC is implemented ...

Sorry, but a burnt child dreads the fire. It´s a multiplayer game and it is Early Access. Remember

SCUM
Paladins
Apex Legends (not Proton, but Wine)
...
This is a solo/co-op game, they really have no need for EAC and from what I read they have no plans to add it in either.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
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