Nexus Mods retire their in-development cross-platform app to focus back on Vortex

One of the new Nexus Mods owners posted an announcement noting that they're moving back to Vortex, ceasing development on their newer cross-platform app.

This is quite a big blow for the Linux modding scene, since the newer Nexus Mods app was made with cross-platform in mind from the start, whereas Vortex was not.

The announcement was posted in the Nexus Mods app Development Discord server. In the post from Victor Folmann, it links to a much longer Google Document (Update: and now on their website) that explains their reasoning. In short? The Nexus team were "working on two mod managers, the Nexus Mods App and Vortex, and instead of moving forward together, we were splitting our focus" resulting in "Every feature built twice. Every bug fixed in two places. Every conversation about "which one should I use" was a reminder that we were competing with ourselves instead of solving the actual problems in front of us".

So their effort is moving entirely back to the Vortex app.

For added context, Folmann added a quote in from "Halgari" who had been leading development on the Nexus Mods app that reads:

I'm proud of what we've accomplished on the Nexus Mods App over the past few years. We've done a lot of deep thinking about how modding data should be structured, how collections can be improved, and what a mod manager could look like if we rethought it from the ground up. But a growing frustration has been that these ideas only reach the subset of users modding games the App supports. We've been trying to catch up to the feature set of existing tools and innovate at the same time, which meant progress on both fronts was slower than any of us wanted.

By bringing those lessons to Vortex, we change that equation. Vortex already has the features, the game support, and the userbase. We don't have to convince anyone to switch or wait until we've rebuilt what already exists. Improvements can land in the hands of millions of users as soon as they're ready, not sometime in the future once we've caught up.

This decision wasn't one I took lightly, but it's absolutely one I believe is correct. A single direction of focus will let us innovate faster and serve our community better, and I'm excited to see what we build together.

As for Linux support for Vortex? Don't expect it any time soon. Folmann touches on that to note: "We’re also exploring what Linux support might look like for Vortex in the future. While getting every game and mod working on Linux might not be possible, it’s an area we want to keep evaluating where it makes sense".

Bit of a blow for people interested in modding games on Linux with a Native Linux app.