Is Linux Ready For Mainstream Gaming In 2025?
Linux is quietly gaining ground on Windows in the gaming space. But how well does it actually perform? Here's what I experienced.
The majority of problems Linux has with gaming are intentional decisions on the part of the studios at this point.
I keep what I think is a pretty healthy gaming diet, which tends to steer me away from the megacorporate shit and into smaller studios and indies, and games just tend to run.
Even AAA games are fine, as long as they don't have intrusive anticheat. If you're after SP, non-VR gaming, Linux is ready today. If you want VR, you need to be more flexible with headsets. If you want MP, you need to be really flexible since devs intentionally block Linux for whatever reason.
I can install and play pretty much any single player game I want, even new releases, and I am confident I will be able to play it with no significant/noticable issue... and on the offchance there is one, it will most assuredly be fixed within a couple days with a proton update.. and honestly its been like 2 years since that last happened to me.
The only time I even have to think about installing a game, and thus have to check protondb, is when I want to install an MMO or Multiplayer game...and a shocking amount of those work, too. Just not all of them, because of invasive anticheat.
I don't think you need to be super flexible with Multiplayer as long as they aren't competitive games. Here's some multiplayer games I've played flawlessly in the last 12 months: Baldur's Gate III, Webfishing, Deep Rock Galactic, Atlyss and Stardew Valley. It really depends on the genre I think.
I'd say the peripheral situation could be better too, such as sim racing gear. Logitech support is solid and looks decent with Fanatec at least, but there's a lot of options out there that are unlikely to have good Linux support.
I tested out Monado recently with the Reverb G2 and it's coming along nicely. It's definitely not ready yet, but hopefully it will be within a few years.
Yes.
Why is the penguin holding it like that??
because the pinguin is the linux gaming pc handing you the controler
Nice!
maybe its ai slop
Have you tried to play with one without thumbs?
I will test this theory and report back
I've been gaming soley on linux since 2020 or 2021.
Yeah, its definitely ready now, most straggler games are basically massively overproduced and massively MTX exploitative team based shooters using kernel level anti cheat that are designed for children with mom's credit card.
So what you are saying is "no, linux doesn't let you play the games you want to play, especially the extremely popular ones".
You can play most of the games you want to play, with the main caveats being VR and anti-cheat. If it's SP and on a regular screen, it'll probably work.
What about flipping the question. Making modern games available on more platforms?
I have no problem playing games on Linux. Currently playing Baldur's Gate 3. Only thing I had to was turn on compatibility in the steam settings.
Ugh, that's too much work. I'm going back to Winblows
Do you mind me asking you which distro you use? I've tried running BG3 on Linux Mint and I can't seem to get the game to ever load into the world. I get all the way to the in-game menu and into the loading screen after that and then it hangs and crashes. Every time. I've tried using a couple different versions of Proton, tried out a few different versions of Nvidia graphics drivers... No luck yet.
It runs fine on Linux Mint Debian under proton for me.
This illustration is triggering me
I've been gaming on Linux exclusively for 5 years now. I have waited for some games to run better but it's been generally great for me.
Which ones in particular? I have this issue on windows 10 as well. I've still not touched city skylines 2 and stalker 2. I just tried Jedi survivor, and honestly it was a mistake.
Might sound funny it's usually the older titles. The longest I have waited for was Spellforce Platinum Edition. It always ran sluggish, now it probably runs better than on Windows. Another one was Agarest, it was kinda playable but with too much hassle. Well, I usually play older stuff anyway. Surprisingly I almost never had problems with new games. Maybe only Hell Let Loose but it was an anti-cheat issue.
Gamers on Linux have minimal setup overhead.*
*as long as you stick with Steam. Anything else means going to Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, etc which is far more hit or miss.
Added the missing qualifier to one of the articles bullet points for them.
In my experience running non-steam games through steam with proton is the best way to play those games too. The only time I've ever had to use lutris was when I had to install some DLC for a GOG application on the same prefix as the game because it had a separate exe installer for that DLC. I haven't been able to figure out a way to do that through steam. But once I got that done I just ran the game through steam and it worked perfectly. The heroic games launcher gets suggested a lot too but I literally have never been able to get it to work for a single game.
With Heroic for what its worth, I have had some luck on difficult games going into the settings for the troublesome game, going to the "other" tab and ticking the box for "Use Steam Runtime".
Yes
Pewdiepie apparently confirms that it is, atleast according to his latest video and his comment in the comment section.
Could you link them? That would give a massive boost in getting more people to sign up for Linux.
For example: https://phtn.app/post/lemmy.ml/26299109
There are a couple of other posts, you'll find them quickly if you search for Pewdiepie.
At this point Linux and Windows are more like Xbox and PlayStation back in the the 2000's, except Linux has a compatibility layer to allow it to run a lot of Windows games.
An article similar to this is posted by itsfoss every week.
Pretty much, yeah. Only thing not 100% yet are some of the more obscure peripherals. Example: Eye and head tracking. While sticks can and do work in Linux, it would be nice if VKB, Virpil, etc had native Linux calibration tools.
Doesn't actually matter with the way Windows performs, these days.
Not yet, in order to be ready for mainstream gaming, the gaming experience has to be smooth (As in easy to install, Mod & patch)
It's smoother than Windows gaming was when I started Windows gaming (win 95).
For reference, to play Warcraft 1 multiplayer you joined a chatroom on Battle.net and the chat channel gave everyone a terminal MS-DOS command that you had to copy/paste into the terminal. If anybody had any network more complicated than computer -> modem then it would fail. If anyone failed to connect your game would crash. I was gaming like this at around 10 years old.
Obviously, comparing 2025 Linux to '90s Windows isn't exactly fair... but gamers are not incapable of dealing with complexity.
Sure, don't tell your 8 year old cousin to swap from Windows to Linux. But if you're a smart high school student then you can learn. Like anything, it'll take some getting used to and you'll have to deal with frustrations but knowing how to use Linux and, probably more importantly, how to research and solve problems is well worth the effort.
What will itsfoss.com say? I'm on the edge of my seat
Not until they implement 3D Settings page in the Nvidia control panel, and improve upon HDR support. Do those two things, and I will finally stop having to dual boot.
Edit: And yes anticheat needs to be sorted as well, as others have pointed out.
That's nvidia's proprietary software, only nvidia can add stuff to it.
As for anti-cheat, kernel level anti cheat is not going to happen on Linux, nor should it (or continue being used in Windows)
And fix issues with anticheat.
I would say mainstream should become this: game has client-side kernel level anti-cheat? Goes right into trash bin
Hell, I do not need any kernel-level third-party hacks to literally spend money on the Internet, and some company wants system-level access to my computer when I want to just have fun and do pew-pew? Lol, good luck with that
I was having some issues when I updated to Nobara 41 as Hell Divers 2 failed to load in the textures. So it still has hiccups.
Hell Divers 2 has had a rocky relationship with Linux from the get go. Hopefully, as Linux gains market share, game studios start to include Linux testing.
Considering a majority of people use Nvidia on their desktops, they'll be forced to jump through hoops with stuff as minor as setting their desktop session to X instead of Wayland (which is absolutely not ready) to installing a custom vaapi package to get hardware accelerated video playback in Firefox. With games and Nvidia say goodbye to a chunk of DX12 performance Then you have the majority of laptop users that have intel HD graphics laptops, ones made in the past 10 years will be fine for low end stuff, but they will take a hit because i915 shits itself with DX12 games and the new xe driver that handles it better is very new and only available on iGPUs made in the last 3 years or so? It is really only good if you have an AMD GPU which has absolutely pitiful market share, with the Steam Deck probably being the most popular AMD PC device people own.
No.
No.
This is the same horse-shit conversation that's been going on since like 96.
Want to prove somebody is a tech fraud? Listen to them rec *nix for anything but what it's good at.
This is specific to gaming, which it does great at. I've been running Ubuntu since late 2023 with no issues.
Great article and also outlines why I'm not switching today. I already have to deal with plenty of shit during my work hours, gaming is a way for me to relax and wind down. I don't want to think or deal with a sub optimal gaming experience, to then have to bug fix in my spare time.
You can say all the negative stuff you want about Windows, but it does run games well. The moment I can expect to have the same experience on Linux, I will switch, it's that simple.
Honestly this is already my daily experience with Windows : having to figure out why my controller doesn't work on a small selection of games when it's in wireless mode, having to install a third-party patch to run a game in an exotic definition, fix a game not launching on the right monitor even though it's set as main display, installing a mod just to bring controller support to a game that lacks it, etc etc. and I could go on all day. Personally my Windows gaming experience has been sub-par for years now, looking forward to switching (again) later this year.
From the article
gaming on Linux has come a long way in the past few years, and I can confidently say that Linux is ready for mainstream gaming in 2025.
So the writer concludes it works
Concludes that it works, but it's not quite there yet. And looking at other replies here, it's even more challenging if you want to play competitive multiplayer games that use anti cheat software. Which are games I still enjoy to play.
That's fair. I feel like it's well worth it, but I do get a kick out of bug fixing and tinkering too.
Get VR working without having to compile from source and it will be
VR is not mainstream gaming.
VR is a minority of a minority of a minority of gaming.
Steam VR mostly works. It's one of the areas that takes a massive stinky performance hit, and there is no motion smoothing yet (somehow), but it does work. I've put thousands of hours into vrchat in it, played through all of Alyx, etc. all on Linux.
With how long VR has been around, I can still count on one hand the number of people I know that have an entry level Quest, let alone good VR gear. For that reason, I dunno if I'd include VR in the definition of mainstream.
Its not mainstream. probably never be mainstream... Just like 3d TVs.
Its a rich mans hobby.
the only reason the quest is "cheap" in comparison is because its facebook and when it comes to facebook.. you will always be the product. Its sold to you "cheap" compared to others, because they make that back and more on harvesting and selling the data they collect from you using it.
overwhelming majority of gamers use gaming to escape and relax. Jumping around a room exhausting yourself is kind of the antithesis to that.
If you package it, they will come
A lot of people use Quest standalone, but the PC VR experience is much, much better if it can be setup right. Eliminating the major issues that hold it back from working would make a big difference.
That and a whole smorgasboard of Windows MR headsets will be useless bargain bin items soon, as Microsoft is pulling support for those headsets entirely, and I know the linux community has added support for Windows MR in Linux. They're not bad headsets, and being super cheap would let a lot of people try out VR, even if the experience is a bit behind compared to the modern headsets (Index, Quest 3, etc.)
I played through HL Alyx on a baremetal PopOS! system and Valve Index, with no need to compile a kernel from source ... in 2022.
It would be nice but according to Steam only 1.9% of users have VR headsets. So it's naturally a slow development.
I recently switched my VR PC from Windows to Bazzite. No compiling necessary.
Unless your using something like a Pimax its there. Have a look at Envision. You can install it from the AUR or a appimage from git both allow you to avoid having to compile from source. Envision allows you to use Monado if you have a wired headset or WiVRn if you have a quest or other wireless headset and can also install WlxOverlay or Stardust as overlays.
This page has whats compatible with what headsets https://lvra.gitlab.io/docs/hardware/