this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Epic Games Store will get a Linux version sometime "soon" (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
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I really don't like Epic personally, but this is still pretty huge. Linux and SteamOS have come a long way. CEO Tim Sweeney has always been very negative towards the idea of Linux support, so Epic changing that stance would suggest that Linux/SteamOS has finally become too big of a market to ignore.

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[–] FoxAlive@lemmy.zip 1 points 20 hours ago

I don't like Sweeny, and don't trust him. I don't want him interested in Linux even if people do use his service and think it would be a benifit if it worked on linux.

Sweeny is always trying to get ahead of the curve on things, and will sue and try to cause damage to get his way. He hates monopolies like steam and google because he his envious and thinks he should be the monopoly, and every move he has made has been to selfishly reach that goal.

I don't know what he has planned but I can see him running some narative similar to his google play legal fight to try to throw around his power and take control, rather than just making a decent product.

If everytime he opened his mouth he didn't shit on Linux, shit on anti Ai, shit on open source, and directly support csam I would maybe believe him. Its like everytime he opens his mouth he aims to say the dumbest thing possible.

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Not for me, but great for Linux.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Damn, how the turn tables. I remember reading somewhere how Tim boy expressed that Linux was "terrifically hard audience to serve due to fragmentation and anticheat concerns”. I also remember thinking “you’ll come around when the money looks good, bitch”. He did.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

It's that fortnite steam machine audience

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 day ago

As always, Tim Sweeney only cares monopolies and alternative platforms when it's financially beneficial.

[–] dmir@gehirneimer.de 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And him saying switching to Linux is like moving to another country instead of addressing the issues at home lol

That's after years of talking smack against Valve and Newell, too. Which will not cease, I'm sure, but I bet he's either real angry now or doing a lot of mental gymnastics to tell his narcissistic ass he's not being proven wrong.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You’re assuming that these ~~people~~ robots actually think like us humans. They’re literal robots with vocal cords.

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I would be genuinely shocked if they actually manage to do anything remotely substantial to make games run on Linux. This sounds more like them jumping late on the Steam train (pun intended) as they have been doing up to this point.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yes, I expect they'll just make a Linux client and rely on UMU or some other open source project to actually get them to run.

I don't expect them to meaningfully push the Linux platform forward as Valve has done.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago

tim will probably whine that you have to add the ppa manually and "linux is blocking our store".

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They can rely on an open source project called Proton.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Proton is really meant to work through steam, UMU is meant to replicate how reliably games run through steam+proton without steam. There's a reason that heroic and all the other game launchers are switching to UMU as the default for running games.

My basic understanding is that, in addition to proton, steam provides a set of Linux runtimes, to make sure that the converted system calls from proton always match up with the correct standardized runtimes on the Linux system, regardless of distro. They also provide winetricks/protontricks as needed for games. There's also some system variables passed to tell proton/etc that the game is running through steam and has this setup. Finally steam distributes shader caches, which both improve performance, and bypass proprietary video codecs by replacing them with open source friendly video files.

UMU is basically replicating all of this except the shader/media distribution, hopefully allowing games to run as reliably outside of steam as they do inside of it.

[–] drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Who wants to bet that it will get to minimum viable product, be shoved out the door, and get basically no support until such time that Timmy goes "Well we aren't getting enough ROI on Linux" and bin the Linux version completely ignoring that they aren't even getting purchases on the windows client?

[–] treesquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Have you seen the windows version? It's basically been MVP since the beginning, it's only recently started looking like they cared. In addition to lacking basic library management features, for years, if you were connected through a VPN, it would constantly reload while you were looking through the store or your library so you couldn't even browse to buy stuff or look at your games.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

heroic: i've been here the whole time

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Heroic is a great option, and will likely remain most people's preferred way to play Epic games on Linux/SteamOS. After all, a lot of windows users prefer heroic there as well due to the bloat/slowness of the official Epic launcher.

That said, official support is always good. It both represents that Linux is growing and a viable alternative to windows, guarantees better support from games on the platform in the future, and pressures other companies to also support Linux.

Basically this (and GoG adding support) are big deals, even if it's not because we really needed their official support to have a good way to play their games.

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I have not needed to use heroic yet, but I keep meaning to install it so I can see what it is all about.

[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

Heroic is more than just an epic games launcher fyi, it's pretty much a full replacement for lutris (which I have stopped using due to the llm code shitshow)

[–] scutiger@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Heroic lets you log in with your GOG, Epic, and Amazon accounts and install/update your games like Steam. If all your games are on Steam then it's pointless, but if you have a GOG library, it's quite convenient, and it will automatically set your games up with your Proton variant of choice.

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago

Itch.io is supposedly going to be added as well. Which would be great, their launcher also sucks.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Competition is good for consumers.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

There's two competitions here, windows vs Linux, and steam vs epic.

Of those two, I consider windows vs Linux the more important competition for consumers. And Linux is the underdog there, so I think Linux doing better will help more people than any other result of this.

So the question becomes, is this good or bad for Linux? More official support for Linux is good obviously, but also Valve funds a lot of open source projects and generally invests a lot of money in Linux (and I'm very doubtful that Epic will do anything similar). So arguably Valve doing better and having a larger monopoly might do more good in the long run, if it helps counteract the windows monopoly. Of course, that would only matter if Epic on Linux actually dents Steam's market share in any meaningful way, which seems unlikely.

[–] professor_prime@lemmychan.org 1 points 1 day ago

That's one program I certainly don't care about coming to Linux.

[–] Lydia_K@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

No thank you.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

On a personal level, I also don't like Epic and Tim Sweeney, but recognize how important this is of a change. Tim said in the past they don't care bout the Steam Deck, because it is not selling well. They will care if it is selling in the tens of millions. (I can't link to the original Twitter/X post, so I rely on correct quoting from other places.)

“If we only had a few more programmers. It’s the Linux problem. I love the Steam Deck hardware. Valve has done an amazing job there; I wish they would get to tens of millions of users, at which point it would actually make sense to support it.”

- Tim Sweeney