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PayPalPine Studio released a new update for their popular game Escape Simulator, dropping the Linux version to focus on Proton.
In the Steam announcement originally their statement read:
We’ve decided to stop maintaining a native Linux build. With recent Steam Deck updates, we’ve encountered too many issues. The good news is the game runs great on Proton, and this allows us to focus on new content for everyone. Thanks to our Linux community for understanding ❤️
However, they've since changed it to say:
We’ve decided to stop maintaining a native Linux build. :( We supported the native Linux version for nearly 4 years, even though it’s always been under 0.5% of our players.
Proton now runs the game more reliably than the native build with fewer crashes, better performance, and most Linux players already switched to it.
As a small team, maintaining the native build across many distros was taking time away from developing new content (we just released our 50th room!). So we’ve decided to focus on supporting Proton, which continues to work well on Linux and Steam Deck.
We understand this change is frustrating for some, and we truly appreciate everyone who supported us on Linux. <3
It's hard to argue against their reasoning. Proton runs Windows versions of games often incredibly well on Linux platforms, to the point you usually cannot tell the difference. It's only usually an actual problem if the game has some annoying anti-cheat that blocks Linux.
As for the new update it includes a new noir-themed room called Detective's Office, new detective outfits, a soundtrack update and they confirmed another DLC is on the way.
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Pyrate a day ago
Termy a day ago
The only real downside i see with proton is that the startup-time is much longer than native builds, but for most games that isn't really an issue i'd say.
I completely agree that pushing for more vulkan adoption first is probably the better approach than to insist on native versions.
At least if proton is officially supported and tested against, as seems to be the case here.
AsciiWolf a day ago
TimeFreeze a day ago
"We dont wanna bother anymore with a Native Port so just use Proton k thx bye."
Maybe they are just bad at making a good native port not sure, but i have ton of Native Games which are quite old already and still work perfectly without any issues. And "as a small team" excuse doesnt really count if a lot of Indie Games can manage a perfectly fine Native port.
Shame to see yet another game going the Proton route. And sure it "just works" but i still keep on preferring Native ports over Proton.
The only compatibility issue I've run into with Proton vs. native is on my 2014 MacBook Air running Arch. Apparently Proton doesn't work well on the Haswell iGPU and so Proton games don't really work, but native ones do.
Most often on my modern desktop, Windows builds via Proton run better than native.
I've ran into issues with native linux ports but also some run just fine. The most annoying ones for me are the native ports refusing to run due to requiring old and deprecated libs
silverhikari 24 hours ago
StalePopcorn 20 hours ago
Some older games with native builds I play via Proton because distro updates made native unplayable/broken or some visual effects are only available via Proton.
sprocket 15 hours ago
But that said if the issue is having to maintain cross-distro compatibility instead of a single platform, that's a problem.
Phlebiac 12 hours ago
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2879840/Escape_Simulator_2/
But I expect that will get dropped now as well...
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