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Dying Light 2 Stay Human is out and works well on Linux

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Dying Light 2 will be easily one of the biggest releases this year and the good news is that it works on Linux without any messing around. Note: personal purchase.

Tested with Steam Play Proton (specifically Proton Experimental), so far the experience has been pretty good, although with a caveat that I've yet to try co-op. At least as far as single-player goes, it works really well. Interestingly for a lot of players on Windows, the game just crashed trying to start the game - no such problem here on Linux.

Showing the true power of Proton as a compatibility layer, having such a high-profile release working out of the box on day-1 is a really fantastic thing for Linux. The original Dying Light is also one of my favourite open-world Zombie-smashers, so it's quite exciting to get to run through Dying Light 2 right away like this.

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Both the DirectX 11 and 12 modes work, although switching from 11 (the default) to 12 did cause a hard lock-up requiring a reboot. After that though, loading back in and it continued working just fine. Performance between the two modes doesn't seem all that different either, at least on NVIDIA with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Considering how Techland supported the first game for so long, I think we can expect good things for the future of Dying Light 2. Techland have already promised 5+ years of continued support with free DLCs, various in-game events, bigger paid story DLC, new enemies, new weapons and much more.

Something to note is that the game does include Denuvo Anti-tamper, which caused a bit of a ruckus since Techland did not even mention it until right before the launch. Thankfully Denuvo has worked on Linux with Proton for some time now and doesn't appear to cause any playability issues here, although be careful if you switch between Proton versions for testing on Dying Light 2 as it may trip it up.

Be sure to also add -nologos to your Steam launch options, otherwise you'll need to spam button-press to get through annoyingly long logo screens.

You can buy it on Humble Store and Steam.

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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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BielFPs Feb 5, 2022
Quoting: kokoko3kWorse than that.
They have vulkan and still use d3d.

I remember that Vulkan API was still an infant API at the time, not many hardware supported it and lacked of many resources. Nowhere near as stable and resourceful as it is today.

Add this to the fact that they where probably already developing it before the release (due to steam machines at the time) and you can see that they didn't have choice besides going for OpenGL.

Of course nowadays the opposite is true.
Nanobang Feb 5, 2022
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I'm pretty giddy about this working out of the gate. I'll need to check the recommended specs, though. My GTX 1070 is nice, but it's not RTX 2080 Ti nice. :)

Any word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?


Last edited by Nanobang on 5 February 2022 at 3:52 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Feb 5, 2022
Quoting: NanobangAny word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?
It appears there are some co-op issues, with it possibly crashing https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5542 however the first comment notes it worked fine on a specific Proton version so it's a bit odd.

That said, Techland did note that there were some issues overall with multiplayer too even on Windows. https://twitter.com/DyingLightGame/status/1489607307164106758?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
QuoteDear gamers, thank you for your feedback. Two things on the top of our list: disconnects in co-op mode and problems with redeeming awards, codes, and other in-game content, including Twitch Drops from TechlandGG. Our team is on it. We will update you on the progress.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 5 February 2022 at 3:59 pm UTC
BielFPs Feb 5, 2022
Quoting: GuestCould it be that many game developers are a bit like the people who work at Microsoft? People who are (in general) incomprehensibly lazy, do nothing positive all day, get the most worthless work results imaginable, but still become the richest people in the world because of the behavior of the average person.
Conspiracy theories (that might be partially true) aside, the reason is the same as always:
Profit vs Development costs vs Shareholders deadline

Big companies usually opted to DirectX because , besides cultural history, they have more developers with experience and more tools compatible with

If a big company is going to develop a new non-exclusive AAA game, I imagine this is their priority list:

1 - DirectX 11(for now): supported on pre windows 10 system and xbox
2 - DirectX 12: not supported on pre windows 10 system, but supported on modern ones and more powerful that dx11. Also supported on xbox
3 - GNM/GNMX: supported on play station 4/5
4 - Nintendo switch: Using unity or other compatible engine if the hardware supports
5 - Vulkan(windows): supported on modern hardware and some pre windows 10 systems, as a alternative to directx but without the burden of officially support another system

There's also the fact that AAA companies almost never develop a game from scratch, they usually work with assets from their other games (or from the companies they bough) and modify it to make a new game, and most of the time those assets are directX dependent. There's also the fact that these work are made by humans, so they need time to learn how to properly work with a brand new api, and because directx is on the market for years, is very easy to find developers that are already experienced with Dx development (kind of a smaller chicken and egg case)

Quoting: GuestThe same can be said of many new games that will be released this year. Super small developers (like with the game Valheim) can use Vulkan and support Linux and make a very popular game.
Independent developers usually doesn't have a shareholder deadline to meet, and the fact that they usually have smaller and more centered teams means that most of the team knows exactly how the game is being made. Big companies uses developers from various parts of the world, some of them might never have direct contact to others, just a bunch of people developing single pieces of code, then merging together for the quality team to test. Like an open source project, but without the community to test and report bugs and with a deadline to met.
Nocifer Feb 5, 2022
Quoting: BielFPsThere's one thing that saddens me about this game is that, back then when they attempt to make a native version, they didn't had vulkan and the linux graphics were in a sorrow state. That resulted in a (opengl) poor performant native version specially compared to the later Proton that made use of a more performant API.

Nowadays they have everything to make a great port for a linux version, thanks to so much investment that was made along those years, but there's almost no probability that we'll see another attempt to make it, due to the problems with their first attempt, and the fact that Proton justifies the lack of reason to work with anything that isn't DirectX.

At least we can somehow play the game on linux and hope that they don't put any kind of anticheat latter.

Who in their right mind would forego Proton and thus Valve's guarantee for third-party support by opting to go Linux native and getting to face the bureaucratic and development nightmare that is venturing out to a new, unexplored platform all by themselves? No one. We have to face it, Valve's presence is what had made Linux gaming into what it is, and Proton is what has allowed Valve to bite the bullet and invest into Linux. So for all practical purposes Proton is Linux gaming, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Quoting: kokoko3kWhen you buy something, you're paying for support too, so why paying full price for a software that is completely unsupported on your platform, where platform can be Linux in general?

Hmm, no, in my case I personally pay to be able to enjoy the story/gameplay of the game and repay the devs for the effort they put into making it. Support is usually a byproduct.

Quoting: GuestThere is absolutely no excuse that the big developers can not support Linux

There is, and the key word here is "big". For small developers, supporting something new is easy because they lack the red tape and the established practices and the concerned shareholders that big developers have to account for, which usually puts them into a mindset of "don't fix what is not broken". If they already have an established business making games with DirectX and bringing them money in by the bucket, then they sure as hell not going to jeopardize that for the sake of a platform with minuscule market share. That's why Linux must first become a lucrative platform before some of the big devs will maybe get convinced to invest into it. And that's why we need Valve and Proton.
Bogomips Feb 5, 2022
At the moment my biggest problem is the fact that the game doesn't know what a mouse is…
Extra buttons and wheel are not working at all (cannot be assigned). I use macro with Piper as a workaround but apparently extra buttons are not even implemented (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2742770845.


Last edited by Bogomips on 5 February 2022 at 5:45 pm UTC
Nanobang Feb 5, 2022
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Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: NanobangAny word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?
It appears there are some co-op issues, with it possibly crashing https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5542 however the first comment notes it worked fine on a specific Proton version so it's a bit odd.

That said, Techland did note that there were some issues overall with multiplayer too even on Windows. https://twitter.com/DyingLightGame/status/1489607307164106758?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
QuoteDear gamers, thank you for your feedback. Two things on the top of our list: disconnects in co-op mode and problems with redeeming awards, codes, and other in-game content, including Twitch Drops from TechlandGG. Our team is on it. We will update you on the progress.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoroughgoing response. Really, that was nice. And it sounds to me like the sort of rough edges most big games have upon release. I'm confident it'll get sorted sooner than later.


Last edited by Nanobang on 5 February 2022 at 4:30 pm UTC
BielFPs Feb 5, 2022
Quoting: NociferWho in their right mind would forego Proton and thus Valve's guarantee for third-party support by opting to go Linux native and getting to face the bureaucratic and development nightmare that is venturing out to a new, unexplored platform all by themselves? No one. We have to face it, Valve's presence is what had made Linux gaming into what it is, and Proton is what has allowed Valve to bite the bullet and invest into Linux. So for all practical purposes Proton is Linux gaming, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Read carefully and you will notice that this was exactly what I've said in the comment you quoted.

When the first port of Dying light was made, proton didn't existed yet and Vulkan was still an early tech. Now Vulkan is in a state that they could made a very good native version, but the lack of steam machines hype and Proton existence justifies they not tempting to do it a second time, and that's the sad part about it.
prosoor Feb 5, 2022
No this is not "Gaming on Linux". This is gaming in Windows emulator, that runs on Linux.
So I could play PSX or Amiga games and say it's "gaming on Linux".
No.
Gaming on Linux is when a game runs on Linux.
tuubi Feb 5, 2022
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Quoting: prosoorNo this is not "Gaming on Linux". This is gaming in Windows emulator, that runs on Linux.
So I could play PSX or Amiga games and say it's "gaming on Linux".
No.
Gaming on Linux is when a game runs on Linux.
Hey I get your frustration, I stick to native games as well, but you might want to take a look at GOL's posting rules before you run further afoul of them:
Quote- Talking about zealotry, we are Gaming On Linux and not "Gaming on Linux only native titles or GTFO". If you be a nuisance when talking about Steam Play / Proton, DOSBox, Wine, Cloud Gaming, Emulation and so on, we will give warnings and take further action if needed. Allow people to enjoy what they want, don't be a gate keeper. We don't need constant comments about how you won't buy a game if it's not native, as just one example.
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