Gaming on GNU/Linux platforms

This page is for good quality software on GNU/Linux platforms based on the contributions of /g/ users. Please be aware you won't be able to play most modern games, such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto V because they have not been ported to the GNU/Linux system. Some Windows games, however, can be played through Wine with no degradation in quality, such as with Furcadia. Other games, such as Strange Flesh has a degregation of quality, due to lack of proprietary fonts. Otherwise, it runs well. DosBox is available for GNU/Linux as well.

Games

See also: Games

Open Source

First Person Shooter

Alien Arena

• Alien Arena runs on the CRX Gaming Engine. Alien Arena is a furious frag fest with arenas ranging from the small, to the massive. Dozens of maps, models, and various accessories have been created by community members to add on to the game experience. If socialization isn't your thing, you can play offline against bots.

Assault Cube

• Assault Cube multiplayer game based on the CUBE engine. Its basically just a mix of quake and counter-strike. Contains 12 multiplayer game modes, including: Deathmatch, Survivor, Capture the Flag, Hunt the Flag, Keep the Flag, Pistol Frenzy, Last Swiss Standing & One-Shot One-Kill (plus team versions of these modes). Comes with 26 different maps and has a built in, in-game map editor to help players create their own maps and allows for co-operative editmode in realtime with others! Runs smoothly even on modest hardware.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten

• Cube 2 is a free multiplayer & singleplayer first person shooter, the successor of the Cube FPS. Many multiplayer gameplay modes, most in teamplay variants as well: deathmatch, instagib, efficiency, tactics, capture (domination/battlefield style), CTF (capture the flag), coop edit. Two singleplayer modes: DMSP (fight a monster invasion on any DM map), classic SP (progression driven SP like other games). 7 weapons tuned for maximum satisfaction: double barrelled shogun, rocket launcher, machine gun, rifle, grenade launcher, pistol, fist.
  • Be aware that it contains some closed assets. If you want a fully free game, check out Inexor instead.

• OpenArena is Quake 3 but FOSS. Actually built of the original quake3 engine (id tech 3), which was released under the GPL in 2005.
• Red Eclipse
• Urban Terror
• Warsow is another arena fps. However this one was quite popular during its prime. It was announced by developers to be discontinued/abandoned in 2016
• Cocaine Diesel is a new fork of Warsow that is undergoing development as of 2019.
• Aleph One is a continuation of Bungie's Marathon Engine for the now-free Marathon games, supports the original trilogy plus many fan projects. Similar to halo but different (originally made by Bungie)

Xonotic

• Xonotic is an arena FPS with many game modes, maps, and weapons to choose from. There are official /v/ servers that are semi-popular (for a dead game that is).

Action

• Lugaru is a good third-person fighting game. It has lots of cheaply made moments (like story and level transitions) but also features great fighting mechanics. If you enjoyed that you'd probably like Overgrowth, though it's proprietary and in early access after like 9 fucking years in the development.
• OpenTomb is a cross platform port of Tomb Raider 1-5, early in development.

MMORPG

• Planeshift
• Ryzom

Platformer

• Abuse
• Secret Maryo Chronicles
• SuperTux

Puzzle

• freesweep
• Frozen Bubble
• Mari0
• Pingus

Racing

• Super Tux Kart is the Emacs of video games. 2018 brings online multiplayer.
• Stunt Rally
• Armagetron Advanced
• GLTron

Real Time Strategy

• 0AD
• Glest
• MegaGlest
• OpenRA is an open-source implementation of Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Warzone2100

Rhythm/Music

I mean if it's used by chinks to trick children of The Glorious Nation into thinking it's original game then it says a lot about the quality of the game, right?

Stepmania

• Stepmania started as a Dance Dance Revolution clone, but has since become so much more. It has many options, modes, and even online play. There is a huge number of community contributed stepfiles available.

• Performous
• Frets on Fire
• Ultrastar Deluxe

Roguelikes

• Brogue
• DoomRL
• Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup
• Tales of Maj'Eyal

Simulation

• OpenTTD
• FlightGear

Turn Based Strategy

• Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game made by a cripple who likes guns.
• Cockatrice
• Hedgewars
• UFO: Alien Invasion
• Freeciv is a kind of turn-based game from the 90s.

Open Source with Proprietary Assets

First Person Shooter

• DXX Rebirth is a source port of the Descent and Descent 2 engines.
• ECWolf is a source port of the Wolfenstein 3D engine (also supports Super Noah's Ark 3D).
• ETLegacy is a fork of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory which aims to update the game for modern systems and fix all of the bugs. Currently relies on the proprietary assets, but the free assets are already being developed.
• EDuke32 is a source port of the Duke Nukem 3D engine.
• GZDoom is a source port of the Doom engine. Supports all of the Doom games, Heretic, Hexen and other Doom-based games. Can be played without proprietary assets, see Freedoom.
• ioquake3 is an open source remake of the Quake3 engine.
• ROTT for Linux is a source port of the Rise of the Triad engine.
• Zandronum is basically GZDoom with focus on multiplayer.

MMORPG

• RuneLite is a highly customizable client for Old School Runescape.

Point and Click Adventures

• ScummVM is an engine for running many games such as Maniac Mansion, Leisure Suit Larry and King's Quest.

Role Playing Game

• OpenMW is an open source remake of the Morrowind engine.

Management Simulators

• CorsixTH is a remake of Theme Hospital.
• OpenRCT2 is a remake of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. Has lots of features from the original RCT plus their own, including multiplayer and some gamebreaking cheats. Works great despite being in alpha.

Closed Source

Gratis

Fighting

Toribash

• Toribash is a very unique 3D fighting game with turn based gameplay. Switch joints and muscles between four states (extend, contract, relax, and hold) in order to attack your opponent. Hundreds of game modes/mods. Features online gameplay and skill tier ranking system. You can also play offline against the bot, but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of the game. Download the 4.7 beta with online play here. The last working Linux version was 3.5.

MMORPG

• Second Life is a classic MMORPG with a 3D interface that is glitchy on occasion. Be careful while playing it, though. You might run into furry RPers. Second Life is very famous for furries

Roguelikes

• Dwarf Fortress
• ADoM

First Person Shooter

• ROTC: Ethernet
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Team Fortress 2

Visual Novel

• Katawa Shoujo

MOBA

• Dota 2

Paid

This is a list of /g/ featured paid GNU/Linux games. For a complete list of Steam games for GNU/Linux click here

For a complete list of DRM-free games from GOG for GNU/Linux click here

First Person Shooter

• Half-Life
• Half-Life 2
• Left for Dead 2
• Portal 2
• Prey

Rogue-Like/Lite

• Dungeons of Dredmore
• Faster Than Light
• Hack Slash Loot
• Rogue Legacy
• The Binding of Isaac

Survival

• Minecraft

Rust

• Rust is an online multiplayer game where you must craft things in order to survive. Teaming up with other people is key to survival. Many players are very aggressive and will kill each other over resources. You'll focus your time on building necessary defenses to keep players away from your things as well as crafting guns, ammo, and whatever else you need. The lighting engine is also really good.

Racing

• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Dirt rally

Game Console Emulators

Arcade

• sdlmame
• qmc2 (frontend for sdlmame)

Atari Systems

Atari

• Hatari
• Stella
• Atari++
• atari800

Multi System

• Retroarch (a frontend for libretro) will emulate nearly everything from one easy menu using one controller.

Nintendo Systems

NES

• Higan
• FCEUX
• Mednafen
• Nestopia
• Termboy (terminal)
• TuxNES

SNES

• Higan
• Mednafen
• Snes9x
• ZSNES

N64

• CEN64
• CuteMupen
• Mupen64Plus

Gamecube/Wii

• Dolphin

Virtual Boy

• Reality Boy

Game Boy

• Gambatte
• Higan
• Mednafen

Game Boy Color

• Gambatte
• Higan
• Mednafen
• VBA-M

Game Boy Advance

• Higan
• Mednafen
• VBA-M

Nintendo DS

• DeSmuME

Sony Systems

Playstation

• ePSXe
• Mednafen
• PCSXR

Playstation 2

• PCSX2

PSP

• PPSSPP

Sega Systems

Sega Master System

• Dega
• Kega-Fusion
• Osmose

Sega Mega Drive

• DGen
• Generator
• Kega-Fusion
• Mednafen
• Regen

Sega Genesis

• DGen
• Generator
• Gens
• Gens/GS
• Kega-Fusion
• Mednafen
• Regen

Sega CD

• Kega-Fusion
• Gens/GS
• Gens

Sega Saturn

• Yabause

Sega Dreamcast

• lxdream

Sega Game Gear

• Dega
• Kega-Fusion
• Mednafen
• Osmose

Steam

Warning: Steam uses DRM

Steam is a wonderful service for video games made by the people who didn't bring you Half Life 2: Episode 3.

Installation

Installing Steam on Linux is pretty straight forward. Using Linux Mint 17.2 as an example:

1. Open the Software Manager.
2. Search for Steam.
   

   Searching for Steam in the Software Manager.
3. Install the steam-launcher package.
4. Run the Steam Launcher from the Application Menu, under Games.
   

   Steam shortcut in the Application Menu.
5. Read/Accept the Steam Install Agreement.
6. The launcher will download and install Steam. This is about 200mb.
7. Login to your account/create one.

Installing games

1. In the games section of the store, use the controls on the right to Narrow by Operating System and select Linux / Steam OS.
   

   Filtering games by their OS.
2. Select the game, buy it if it's not free, and click Play Game.
3. You'll see the size of the game download, hit Next.
4. You'll have options to create shortcuts in the Application Menu and Desktop. Select whatever and hit Next.
5. Hit Finish.
6. Monitor the download by click the "Downloading" status bar at the bottom of the screen.
   

   Download the game Toribash.
   • If the download is slow, you can try changing the download server in View > Settings, Downloads, Download region. This will require a restart of Steam.

Once the game finishes downloading, the shortcuts will be available to launch the game.

Running Toribash after installing through Steam.

Troubleshooting

If games run slowly/have a low framerate, make sure you're using the official drivers for your GPU.

• For nVidia GPUs, install the up-to-date drivers and then reboot. These drivers are often proprietary.
• For even newer nVidia drivers or ATI drivers, check Ubuntu's Steam Wiki Page.

If you are having trouble with one game in particular, check the Steam Linux Forums.