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Heroic Games Launcher gets more Steam Deck and Flatpak improvements

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Heroic Games Launcher for Epic Games and GOG on Linux and Steam Deck has a new update out, mostly focused on cleaning up some problems but also sprinkles in some new features like a command-line interface.

This free and open source app has quickly become the go-to for running any games on Linux from Epic and GOG. especially as neither of them offer an official Linux client.

Version 2.3.4 Main Highlights:

  • Added a CLI parameter --no-gui that opens Heroic with no user interface. Might get in handy to create some scripts or add a Heroic game on other launchers. Basically, you just need to call heroic --no-gui heroic://launch/{appName}.
  • Added more feedback on errors and fixed some error messages that were not exactly clear.
  • Now it's possible to pass any wrappers on the Environmental Variable sections. Might be good to some advanced users.
  • [Linux] Heroic now will search for Proton versions and Runtimes outside the main library, so in any other drive or partition.

Main Fixes:

  • [Linux/SteamDeck] Several fixes related to the Steam runtime and Proton.
  • [General] Fixes Force Download and Force Upload of Cloud saves not working properly.
  • [Linux/SteamDeck] Fix Winetricks on Flatpak/SteamDeck for good now.
  • [General] Fix GOG games not running the setup correctly;
  • [Linux/Mac] Fix the Windows version of a native GOG game not working properly
  • [macOS] Heroic will check if the crossover bottle exists before launching now.
  • [macOS] Fix Installing games on the folder with spaces.
  • [General] Library Refresh now will refresh only that specific library, making it more responsive.
  • [General] Fixes some styling issues across the settings.

Update: Shortly after version 2.3.5 landed with these adjustments:

  • Disable most verbosity since several dialogs with false positives were being shown.
  • Fix corrupted config message on Windows.
  • Fix Library is not showing after log in with epic games.
  • Disabled auto-update on macOS
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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fenglengshun Jun 1, 2022
Quoting: itsNottingcan someone please explain the hype about these launchers?

Convenience, granularity, and management.

Heroic makes it so much simpler as you don't need to fiddle with Add Non-Steam Games, deal with Non-Steam Games' proton compatdata, load SO MUCH FASTER, have all the games quickly presented to you for quick downloading/playing, and easier to backup.

Corollary to that, the tweaking options is honestly more convenient than Steam or Lutris. Steam focuses on getting things working out of the box but the weakness is that tweaking options are much less accessible and doesn't acknowledge community ratings whereas with Heroic it's all laid out in a simple fashion and even has a link that opens the game's ProtonDB in a pop-up window.

And for Lutris, I think it's finally catching up with its early design decision it made that hadn't account for Linux newbies, 2020s gaming landscape, and the Steam Deck's decisions (like Flatpak). Still, I do like using Lutris to manage my, ahem, Privateer'd games (I live in third world countries, okay, and VN prices and DRM outside of Steam and to a lesser-degree JAST sucks ass) but Heroic is just better for the free games I claimed from EGS and it's opening up a whole new option of buying from GOG if they can get Cloud Saves working (I'm just so done with losing my save data).

So yeah, there are a couple of reasons to use Heroic, Lutris, Gamehub, etc. Especially if you use emulation. The best thing is that I recently found out about BoilR (in addition to Steam-ROM-Manager so you can have the best of all worlds by installing the games on Heroic or Lutris, then connect them to Steam, so you can have the games themselves (instead of the launcher/emulator) be shown on Steam for quick launching and have Heroic and Lutris for the tweaks management/game installation.

Quoting: fearnflavioCloud sync is tricky but we were able to sync save some games already like CP2077 and others, the problem is that not all games follows the same pattern for file saving, so its complicated to cover all cases, but we are working hard on that and I am optimistic that this will be able to go into the next major release :)

You guys are actual badasses. I've always bitched/laughed about how GOG for Linux always being the top request in GOG Wishlist no matter what filter you use for ages, and here you are, doing it yourselves. Massive kudos.

The only thing that I could request then is some sort of shortcut to open straight to EGS' Free Games page or currently running free game. I always use Heroic to claim them anyways, because that way it's more isolated from the rest of my browser.


Last edited by fenglengshun on 1 June 2022 at 1:51 am UTC
Chronarius Jun 4, 2022
I'm really surprised about that support for EPIC. IMHO the worst Store which is currently out there. Not Customer friendly, non existing support, doesn't care about Linux. Epic Fail is even snatching Games which where available for Linux on Steam. They drop the support for Linux and making them exclusive. I wouldn't spent money on that store, as they even more ridiculous with their accounts then Microsoft.
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