Obviously we have good 3rd party options for GoG on Linux/SteamOS, but it’s still really good to see official Linux support is coming.
Obviously we have good 3rd party options for GoG on Linux/SteamOS, but it’s still really good to see official Linux support is coming.
I never used GOG galaxy, wonder what would be better than Heroic.
What I’m hoping is that they start supporting cloud saves for Linux native games, e.g. Silksong. This is something GOG needs to support server-side, and they’d only bother to do that if they have an official Linux client to do the syncing.
I love Heroic, but it has some quirks that are driving me crazy. I won’t mind a fog launcher on its own. I have a bunch of games from them
Official support is good for a couple reasons, it both gives an official method to play the game on linux that’s expected to work, and means that if a game doesn’t work you have a valid basis to reach out to support or get a refund.
Official support & blessing is always better and involves less toil for maintainers in reverse engineering APIs and keeping them uptodate. For example it is much better if game developers take Linux support seriously than Valve running around fixing all the dumpster fires.
I am new to Linux, why is Heroic better than Lutris?
I’m not sure if this has changed, but Lutris for a long time was largely a collection of community install scripts. It used to be one of the better ways to install games on linux, but it was never super reliable, with the install scripts frequently breaking from updates or other changes. This was less of an issue when it was a more popular install platform, but now that a lot of the userbase has moved on to other launchers, the number of broken install scripts are increasing. It also typically installs the windows version of launchers (like epic/etc), which is an extra level of complexity and potential issues compared to stuff like heroic that communicates with storefront APIs directly.
Heroic is generally a more reliable option for people who want to play specifically Epic/GOG/Amazon games, while other launchers like Bottles and Fargus have become more popular for stuff not installed directly from a game store. I’m not sure exactly why, but it also seems like most of the time when people ask for help with installing a game through lutris, it’s usually a pirated copy of the game, and it’s difficult to tell if the problems with the game are due to lutris or an issue with the bootleg nature of the game.
Both Lutris and Heroic are front ends that manage the compatibility tools and runtime environments of Windows applications.
Lutris provides deeper, more advanced configuration options. It’s better if you want to tinker. Lately it’s been having some difficulties with zombie processes and failing to shut down games.
Heroic is a more streamlined experience with most of the advanced options tucked away in sub-menus, and it has storefront integrations for GOG, Epic, and I think Amazon. For downloading and installing games, it’s comparable to Steam. I use it exclusively for games I bought on GOG.
Faugus Launcher is similar to Lutris, but lightweight, reliable, and without the zombie process issues. I use it for most non-Steam games.
Bottles is a Flatpak app that runs apps in a sandboxed environment, i.e. it doesn’t expose your filesystem to the apps. It also tends to have fewer compatibility issues than other runners.
Lutris is now being slop coded for one thing
It’s worked more reliably for me, though it also isn’t without it’s issues.
I haven’t used either, but there was some drama a few weeks back where the Lutris dev decided to start including AI code. They also preemptively went nuts over expecting people to be mad about it. Because of that, they decided to hide any signs on what code was written by the AI so people couldn’t easily tell and fork it.
If you want to use AI for code, that’s your prerogative. I personally don’t like it but I don’t get to decide what people do with the code they write. Hiding it is just scummy.
Heroic is an alternative frontend for digital game stores (which are not natively supported on Linux). You can sign in with your Epic or GOG account and play, update, etc. your games just like you would with Steam.