We use affiliate links to earn us some pennies. Learn more.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition is out now, needs a workaround on Linux

By -
Last updated: 20 May 2025 at 2:49 pm UTC

GSC Game World have released the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition now which includes S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl - Enhanced Edition, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Enhanced Edition and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat - Enhanced Edition.

If you own the originals, you should receive the new editions for free. The Enhanced Editions also include the originals.

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Each game comes with an assortment of upgrades including:

  • Atmospheric visual enhancements including God Rays, Dynamic Screen Space Reflections, and Advanced Global Illumination effects.
  • Redesigned water shaders, upgraded skyboxes, and wetness effects.
  • Improved visuals with upscaled textures featuring more detailed NPCs and environment.
  • Upgraded weapon Field of View and models.
  • Multiple bugfixes and quality of life tweaks.
  • Full gamepad support.

This also makes the series a much better fit on the Steam Deck too. Plus there's also Steam Workshop support and Cloud Saves as well.

The only one I actually own is S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat, so that's what I picked for some testing today, along with the latest Proton 10 Beta. Early reports from players on Steam have pushed all three Enhanced Editions rapidly into "Mostly Negative". Many noting it's a "blurry mess", so I wanted to see what's going on.

On Desktop Linux, the game will not run out of the box, and ends up giving a black screen with this error:

You can get around that by spoofing a Steam Deck, using this launch option:

SteamDeck=1 %command%

On Steam Deck however, the game does work out of the box.

Once getting into S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Prypiat - Enhanced Edition and fiddling with some settings here's some unfiltered shots of it on Max settings at 2560x1440. Running on Kubuntu 25.04, AMD Ryzen 5800X, Radeon RX 6800 XT on Mesa 25.0.3:

To me, the game doesn't look particularly blurry, certainly not to the level the Steam user reviews are suggesting. There's some slight blurry bits the further you are away but the picture is overall quite clear. And on Max settings, it seems to run well enough on Desktop Linux. Even with the enhancements though, I would have expected performance to be a fair bit higher than it is.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy | Release Date: 20th May 2025

Official links:

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
10 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked 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. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
See more from me
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
9 comments Subscribe

such 20 hours ago
Wouldn't be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. without a disastrous (or at the very least messy) launch. On point for the brand.


Last edited by such on 20 May 2025 at 3:16 pm UTC
fabertawe 16 hours ago
I had the originals so I thought I'd try "Shadow Of Chornobyl". I had the crash as well (desktop), so used "-nointro". Sounds like there may be an intro video I missed in that case, so I'll try "SteamDeck=1", thanks. I used Proton 9.

Looked fine to me and runs fluidly on my RX 6600 on high settings at over 70 fps. Good enough for me. I don't know what the almighty fuss about it being blurry is about.

Is there any point to the FSR option? It was off by default.

Edit: one incredibly annoying thing I did notice - I couldn't assign mouse buttons in the controls.


Last edited by fabertawe on 20 May 2025 at 7:24 pm UTC
Cato-the-younger 13 hours ago
Oh look more slop from GSC. Let me go play STALKER Anomaly instead. Cant believe any true fan would play this slop
devland 11 hours ago
Apparently all mentions of Russia and russians have been removed from the game assets.

I understand why they would want to do this but it's a huge shame to do this to games that take place in fictional contexts.


Remember that these games also have the option to be run via openxray which also fixes bugs and adds qol enhancements.


Last edited by devland on 20 May 2025 at 11:53 pm UTC
eev 8 hours ago
The game is quite blurry on default settings but this is easily remedied by just changing them a little.
Cato-the-younger 8 hours ago
@devland

The removal of Russian references is hugely ironic because STALKER itself is based on the book "Roadside Picnic" by the Brothers Strugatsky, who were outspokenly pro-Russian during the Soviet era. If they are gonna remove Russian things they might as well remove all mentions of the word STALKER because thats Russian too
tuubi 5 hours ago
  • Supporter Plus
@Cato-the-younger
The removal of Russian references is hugely ironic...

Can you blame a Ukrainian developer for doing it anyway? Especially when at least one of the original dev team members died in the war. Hard to care about concepts like irony when faced with the reality of an ongoing invasion.
starpollo 2 hours ago
  • Supporter
So I got SOC working using the launch option mentioned, and the into movie worked too, but the game fails to capture my mouse cursor? So my mouse is moving around the screen all the time, and I have two monitors, so the mouse just leaves the monitor the game is on, and when I click the game pauses because it's unfocused..

This happened on the OG games for me as well, but the mouse cursor wasn't visible over the game, so I could just turn my second monitor off and the game would work fine.

Is anyone else having this issue?
ambrosia_enjoyer 14 minutes ago
I'll pass on sending more money GSC's way for a lazily made re-release that's probably still outclassed by the original versions + community fixes after how they handled STALKER 2. Bonus points that I get to play it in its original, intended state without altered/removed content.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register