Of course, it is sad to see that the native Linux version didn't make it. Liam's article on this is well written. I'm a backer of Everspace and Everspace 2. Everspace had the native Linux version as a stretch goal, and I was more than happy to support Rockfish Games, too.

Back then, we had no other choice, though; we depended on official and native Linux support as Proton was not a thing. So we tried everything we could to convince publishers and devs to give us native versions. We were loud, passionate, and we desperately wanted to play awesome games on our favorite operating system.

Do you remember the technical issues Everspace had? Even back then, Unreal Engine was in a bad state regarding Linux support. It didn't look good with the Linux version due to rendering issues and many other problems, and RFG were close to cancelling the Linux port, as it was just not justifiable to put in so much effort for a small userbase. And here they were in a conflict, a stretch goal was reached with that promise, but fixing the issues in the engine themselves would cost way too much.

Luckily, we seemed nice enough, so they put in the money and effort to finally pull it off. It was a man-year of work just on our side, so imagine how many hours they must have been put into this! We were an even smaller userbase back then, so we should be nothing else but thankful to Rockfish Games for that.

But it didn’t end here. Each update they did for the Windows version of Everspace had to be done again with additional testing for the Linux branch, as it was not the vanilla engine anymore, due to the manual fixes they had to maintain. Every time an extra, full test cycle just for us!

I played the heck out of Everspace, I love that game! I was so happy to be able to play it on my favorite system. I know this was not worth it for RFG from a financial point of view, but I hope we did help promote the game at least. We know this is not measurable, though.

Nevertheless, Rockfish Games learnt from this experience. And though they were confident in having a native Linux version of Everspace 2 as the Unreal Engine had better Linux support than the previous one, they said from the start they'll do the Linux version when the game was done. Everything else would be a waste of time and money affecting the content and quality of the game for the entire player base. It was not a secret they would focus on the game and the main platform first.

Remember Phoenix Point, where they had the first two closed alphas with native Linux versions but realized it's just not possible nor justifiable to maintain Linux versions of these alphas as they just took too much time to maintain? Okay, this one was even worse, as they got bought by Epic, and we didn't even get a Steam version for at least a year.

Sure, I'm biased; I'm a big fan of space games and especially Everspace. I also met the guys in person. So I know as a matter of fact, they have put in the effort to get the native Linux of Everspace 2 out. When Erik (giraffasaur, the community ambassador of Rockfish games) said they put in 2 months of work to get this done, they really did. And as they realized, it's technically not possible with the vanilla Unreal Engine, they already knew it wouldn't be worth maintaining and patching the Engine from experience with Everspace.

But it's also a different situation today. Thanks to Valve, the Steam Deck, and Proton, we can play Everspace 2 on Linux just fine, which is what they actually promised. So what do we want? Play a great game, where the team could focus on (new) content and improve the quality for all players even further? They still had technical issues with the Windows version, I'm pretty sure. Or do we want to be zealots that insist on a binary format and give the developers a hard time, and make a really bad case that might other developers not even consider supporting games on Linux through Proton? It's not fair punishing them for being unable to keep a promise that's not in their hands. They can only do their reasonable effort as much as it's in their possibilities and of course financially justifiable (this is common sense in any legally-binding software development agreement).

We don't even have all the insight, we are not game developers. We are passionate gamers. It's okay to be sad about it. Backers expecting a native Linux version get a refund. That's even more than they have to do; you know how Kickstarter works. Normally, you do not get a refund. I fully understand the disappointment, it's okay to be disappointed and express that. But it's not okay to become harsh, unfriendly, and unreasonable. You feel how much passion they put into the game, so many details, such great-looking visuals. And I know they are unhappy with the results, too, since they already invested precious development time in native Linux support, and even get Flak from individuals in the Linux community. Of course, they are not happy either that they couldn’t keep their promise verbatim.

However, they do have a solution as they will officially support Proton. As the game just works almost flawlessly with Proton, we can play it! I already clocked 300 hours of it on Linux with Proton, and the game is just awesome! I'm happy to be a backer, I'm sad it didn't work out with the native Linux version, but I can play the game without booting Windows. That's what I want. Let's be fair, enjoy the game on Linux, and be thankful to get official support through Proton, so other studios are not demotivated to support gaming on Linux.

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Quoting: egeeHeck yeah. Great game keeps getting better. iirc it's used Vulkan since day 1 so it's basically always run pretty good on Linux.

They started with OpenGL but updated to Vulkan. Took them a bit to get good performance, but nowadays it's really good.

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And here am I, using nVidia since decades, barely having issues and even being happy about DLSS and nvenc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I remember being very disappointed about ATi back then, when the fglxr driver wasn't updated for X anymore and I couldn't use my Radeon X1950 Pro anymore, and the card wasn't even that old. nVidia instead still supports really old cards with their legacy drivers on modern systems.

Sure it all changed in the meantime, from my experience though nVidia cards are not half as bad as you could get the impression by some comments. Neither my Ubuntu nor Arch system had issues with the proprietary drivers (fingers crossed).

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Also Orbital Bullet [External Link] works, but that's one even marked as unsupported. ProtonDB [External Link] lists it as platinum though. Works well on Deck.

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It's now available: https://community.stadia.com/t5/Stadia-General/Stadia-Controller-How-to-Enable-Bluetooth/m-p/86195/thread-id/35077 [External Link]

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My way of playing the Division 2 would have been Stadia... it even had crossplay with PC players. I bought it on sale... well, got refunded.
It's available via GeForce Now, but currently only via Ubisoft or Epic, where I don't own the game. And it being borked on Steam, I guess I won't play it at all now.

We have other games to play...

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Cool! And interesting what they all track! Devices, operating systems, genres... everything! Well, I have to admit in this case I don't mind. If it would be Microsoft or Google, it would be different :whistle:

Here's mine: https://s.team/y22/cqrpgmf?l=english [External Link]

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Nice picks, I'm interested mostly in the same games. This show did get me excited for some titles... gosh, I don't want to wait for years for them to finally come out. When will DS2 release and eventually come to PC? 5 years?! :shock:

Let's hope Proton will work with most of them ootb, so we don't have to wait even longer when they finally release, and Proton needs to be updated for them.

But when checking the history of the former Playsation exclusives coming to Steam, they even try to get a playable or even verified mark for the Steam Deck, so chances are good.

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nvfbc for EGL, please.

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Really a shame that Valve hasn't fixed the Mongoose timeout bug. I've played Alyx with Proton, native, the Bioshock Alyx mod Return to Rapture [External Link] with Proton (though it crashed a lot on level transitions), but now I can't get it to run at all. Disabling ipv6 didn't help :-/

Also it was time for me to replace my Index cable again. A damaged cable causes the weirdest issues. Funky pixels flashing randomly in the HMD in all colors, audio cutouts, screen flashes... up to the HMD not being recognized. It's not the HMD that's broken, it's "just" the cable. Now it's all fine again, until this one wears out too.

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