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Ask HN: Linux users, which Steam game would you recommend and why?
I'm looking for a single player game that runs natively on Steam Linux without any extra packages needed. I don't want to have to install or configure anything extra.
FWIW, I have a relatively high spec machine (Nvidia 2070, lots of RAM, etc.), so I'm not too concerned about system requirements.
When I go to explore Linux games on Steam, the list is quite long. I inevitably go down deep rabbit holes of reading player reviews trying to find the right game, until I run out of steam.
I'd appreciate your suggestions (despite my terrible pun above), and if you don't mind, please also share your reasons.
Thanks!
- mgdv 5y agoI’m a fan of Mindustry (https://mindustrygame.github.io/ https://mindustrygame.github.io/) which is a mixture of tower defence and rts Also, if you want to play through the story mode of an rts, I’d recommend Zero-K (https://zero-k.info/ https://zero-k.info/) Both have worked well on an X220 for me
- nameisname 5y ago+1 for Zero-k. You can run this thing on almost any hardware and it's a great RTS.
- cookiengineer 5y agoI don't have a steam account so I'm mostly playing RTS games that are fun to play when other people are around. 0AD, OpenRA, Widelands are some nice improved remakes of the genre, and can fully recommend to check them out. Other than that I'd recommend to check the appdb of wine and proton in case you want to run Windows games, their database usually contains helpful fixes and patches.
- filereaper 5y agoExtreme Tuxracer is all you need https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.sourceforge.ExtremeTuxRacer https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.sourceforge.ExtremeTuxR...
- filereaper 5y agoAside from the jest above, there's plenty of games with native support in Linux. - Half-Life 2 series has great support. - Left 4 Dead series - Bioshock series - Counterstrike - War Thunder - etc... There's very little configuration needed, click install in Steam and play. With the release of SteamDeck, the list of out-of-the-box Linux compatible games should grow over time. If you're looking for more AAA Titles in ProtonDB to see their compatibility with Steam Linux: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/
- bryan_w 5y agoFactorio. Aside from that, don't be afraid of using proton to play windows games. If the game has been out for a while, Steam should make everything "Just work" (assuming no online play)
- Taikonerd 5y agoCould you tell us more about what kind of game you like? There are enough Linux-native games that you can find several in any genre. The best Linux-native game I've played recently has been "Sunless Sea"[0]. It's basically an interactive novel with a fascinating subterranean setting. But, Sunless Sea might be totally wrong for you -- it depends what you're looking for! [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/
- nicolaslem 5y agoI have a lot of fun playing the FOSS "clone" of Age of Empires: 0 A.D. https://play0ad.com https://play0ad.com
- powersnail 5y agoYou can play Dota2 with bots, so technically a "single player" mode. It runs very smoothly on Linux. (There is a slight hiccup after the splash screen after hero selection, but the game hasn't started at that point, so it's not significant).
- Topgamer7 5y agoI play a fair amount of dota2 on linux. It does seem to crash more than I would expect it to on Windows. But other than the occasional crash, its pretty well flawless.
- cpach 5y agoOldies but goldies: Have you played Portal 1 and 2? Amazing story and voice actors. Lots of humor. Tricky puzzles. Loads of fun.
- mywaifuismeta 5y agoCheck out Hades. It's a roguelike and one of my favorite games of the past few years. Amazing music too. Won some game of the year awards I think. I played it on Mac, so I assume it works on Linux too.
- res0nat0r 5y agoTerraria, Factorio, Satisfactory and Oxygen Not Included are all really great.
- gavinray 5y agoGrim Dawn -- if you're into Diablo or Path of Exile like ARPG's It's hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. What makes it so unique is how in-depth the builds and play styles can be. Endless combinations and replayability. It's an "M x N" combinatorial thing. There's something like ~10 classes, with 3 "skill trees" each. You can (and should) choose a second class after first few levels. Now you've got (10 ^ 2) class combinations, with 3 skill trees for each that you can freely use. Then there's a whole thing with types of damage (fire, poison, lightning, etc) and you can tailor builds around this, with both skills and equipment bonuses. On top of it all, it's moddable. So people have released mods to add Diablo classes into it, plus the classes from another game by the same publisher (Titan Quest). Can play solo, or co-op (LAN or online) I can't do the game justice with a single text comment tbh. Just have to try it, if it's your kind of game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/219990/Grim_Dawn/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/219990/Grim_Dawn/ Buy the entire set though if you really want to experience it, not just the base game.
- _odey 5y agoI bought this one last year as I was nostalgic for a game I used to play when I was in middle school (Mu Online) and it looked similar enough in style :). Got the DLCs this last Steam Sale. Playing it on low settings on my AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 2700U laptop, anything higher makes it lag when having a high number of projectiles or porcs going off. One thing to note, I had to set it to run with Proton 5.13 as the newer versions have a bug where a key-press gets queued but not handled until a few seconds later, so you press for a heal, teleport, or to open the map, nothing happens and you die (sad to have this on hardcore). So it doesn't really fit the "native without extra packages" requirement, still a fun game though.
- throwaway39472 5y agoSteam is proprietary. Proprietary bad. Open source good. As a Linux user, I want everything for free. If I can get away with not paying for something, I will. Luckily, it's easy to pirate most games on Steam. Don't pay for ones and zeros, folks!
- throwaway946513 5y ago> Steam is proprietary. Proprietary bad. Open source good. The opening statement almost feels satirical. In the rough chance you're not: Software is a product just as much as you pay for the hardware product. Some developers open source hardware, and that does a drastic good for society. Some developers open source software, and that too is great for society. Yet proprietary hardware still exists and for the vast majority of devices - is dominant. Software rightfully should be used as the license permits. If you want to take the 'moral high ground' then ideally I agree, as much software as possible should be open source. Piracy is not in any way following the open source mantra. The core philosophy that legally supports open source is in fact the Software License. By pirating software, you breach the terms of the license, and are breaking said license in all the same ways as you would for open source software should you breach the license. Willing to bet that you would hold a pitch fork against any company or person who'd breach an open source license. What is different in this case? You're still infringing on someone's intellectual property rights.
- maltelau 5y agoIt's better to just look for a game /you want to play/. Chances are, it'll "just work" via proton even if there's no native version. Right click game -> Properties -> Compatibility -> Pick any recent version. Or, to answer more directly, I've recently played on linux via steam and can recommend: - Total War Warhammer II (native, don't need the DLC unless you want to play specific factions) - Frostpunk (proton) - Don't Starve (native) - Civilization VI (native) - Factorio (native) - Crusader Kings II / III (native) - Valheim (native) - Pathfinder: Kingmaker (native)
- the_only_law 5y agoI’ve had issues with Civ 6 on a pretty damn beefy (albeit Nvidia) machine. Multiplayer was unplayable (would get a black screen when the match started) or laggy to the point of not being playable. This was a few years ago on Ubuntu, and I had better on Fedora a bit later, though the game still need to be tuned down for multiplayer to be usable.
- revolvingocelot 5y agoIt goes against OP's stated desire to not do any installation or configuring, but cloning and building Proton-GloriousEggroll [0] can broaden the horizon of what Just Works quite considerably. Once built and copied into place, it's as easy as selecting it in the Proton dropdown. [0] https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- grepfru_it 5y agoxkoules, your nvidia card may be juuust powerful enough to play it ;)
- lathiat 5y agoPoly Bridge (1 and 2). It’s really great.
- foobarbaz33 5y agoBaldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn It may be old, but it's a true masterpiece of the RPG genre.
- markus_zhang 5y agoCan relate. The whole catalog of Bioware plus Black Isle of that era is full of masterpieces.
- muzani 5y agoI've gone back to playing this. Many modern RPGs are draggy and too big. The BG games were just the right size, not too big, not too small. You can sit for an hour and have lots of fun and go back to work.
- dragontamer 5y agoRecommending a good game is like recommending a good book. It helps if you told us what you actually liked. In any case, if you like games I like, then maybe Factorio and OpenTTD are all you need. OpenTTD is free download (not on steam). Factorio is on steam, but I recommend you buy its straight from the developer instead, so you can get the DRM-free headless version and run servers (and other such benefits).
- echlebek 5y agoTry Stellaris. The Linux port works incredibly well, in fact it seems to work better than the Windows port. It also will run on even low spec hardware and iGPUs.
- EllipticCurve 5y agoGive Terraria a try, It's really awesome and versatile!
- lacoolj 5y agoCSGO CSS CS1.6 Cities Skylines Portals Portals 2
- atypicalstudio 5y agoKerbal space program and in a year or 2 kerbal space program 2. Why? Why not! (basically the motto of KSP)
- marksbrown 5y agoDisco Elysium
- zumu 5y agoFTL: Faster Than Light is simple but great.
- FjolsvithAase 5y agoHardspace: Shipbreaker. Tear spaceships apart in zeroG while your suit runs out of oxygen. Totally awesome physics.
- joshxyz 5y agoDota 2 it's fun
- justinplouffe 5y agoDisclaimer : I work at Square Enix/Eidos Montreal so this is shameless self-promotion. The three games in the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy can currently be had for very little money on Steam since they're on sale for the 25th anniversary of the franchise. They all have Linux builds and they'll run great on the RTX 2070 while also using it fully. They're one of the few AAA single player action/adventure titles available on the platform and they're good fun if you enjoy that kind of game.
- magnetowasright 5y agoAs a life long TR fan who enjoys the reboot trilogy, they can also run well on Linux with comparatively quasi-potato hardware! A decent computer would be nice but you can still enjoy the games without in my experience. It’s amazing to me that the first two games play well on the integrated graphics card (intel HD 620) on a dell Inspiron from a few years ago. Haven’t played the third one on that laptop but the others run great on low settings which has provided me so many hours of enjoyment, so thank you!
- brezelgoring 5y agoVery nice man, thanks for letting me know.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- scorecard 5y agoClassic racing and flight sims such as Grand Prix Legends, Mig Alley/Battle of Britain and Falcon 4 are available for linux here: https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers (this is free, and does not use steam)
- stevefan1999 5y agoDeep Rock Galactic [0]. It's reminiscent of Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress but 3D. Being very similar to Minecraft, except DRG is not very open-ended, instead you have fixed tasks with open-ended approaches, and is also a challenging game at the top level. Recently the developer introduced modding support, and you can run some really crazy mission in the scale of Starship Troopers. Shenzhen I/O [1]. It's one of the most hardcore and nerdiest EE simulation game out in the wild. You have to consult the manual and get the registers, DRAM and communication ports right. Trust me, the details of this game would even make a real engineer impressed. [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic... [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/SHENZHEN_IO/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/SHENZHEN_IO/
- antifa 5y agoI don't remember needing to install anything extra for civ5 or civ6.
- gquiniou 5y agoDishonored 2 : first person shooter with unique level design, can be won without killing any enemies. XCOM2 : turn based combat Darkest Dungeon : turn based roguelike