Since we were asked a lot about this, we reached out to porting studio Feral Interactive to see if they had any plans to update their Linux ports for the Steam Deck.
Feral have ported a number of titles to Linux in the past including Alien Isolation, XCOM & XCOM 2, Total War: WARHAMMER I & II, Total War: THREE KINGDOMS, HITMAN, the Tomb Raider series, Life is Strange & Before the Storm & Life is Strange 2, Dirt Rally and the list goes on. They also have a port of Total War: WARHAMMER III upcoming in "Early Spring".
After waiting quite a while, they replied today with an official statement about Steam Deck support:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.Our most recent Linux titles are officially supported on Ubuntu only, and we do not currently have any plans to update games for further compatibility with Steam Deck or its operating system, SteamOS 3.0. If players encounter issues with Feral's native Linux versions of games on Steam Deck, we recommend playing them via Proton.
I think they will focus more on mobile and console ports going forward.
BlackBloodRum 21 Feb
Big game studios won't want to contract them because "Why? Linux gamers can just use proton since it works, why do we need feral to do it?"
It's sad but it's true, whatever way it went proton was always going to hurt the small porting houses if it was successful.
But still, you must show them respect and gratitude for the work they did for the Linux community in the early days.
I do however believe they will find another way to make money or find a way where their services are still required.
DamonLinuxPL 21 Feb
As far as I know, all Feral games that lack Windows multiplayer have not been included in compatibility.
I'm not buying anymore games they've ported or developed going forward, which is fine by me.
Last edited by Quinn on 21 February 2022 at 4:44 pm UTC
rustybroomhandle 21 Feb
Quoting: mirvKind of not sure what people are expecting Feral to update? The whole point of the Steam Deck is that it doesn't need games to be built specifically for it. Nobody is expecting all their Windows titles to be updated to target this one particular hardware device, so not sure why Feral is being singled out here.
Many Windows-only games are being updated for Steam Deck. Controller support, correct controller glyphs, readable text, support for the quick suspend mode, on-screen keyboard support.
That said, I don't think Feral is really making any money off Linux any more. I'm not even sure it's worth running ported games any more if they're just going to drop support anyway.
Last edited by rustybroomhandle on 21 February 2022 at 5:12 pm UTC
Patreon
Liberapay
PayPal
See more from me