Windows has also done wonders for Linux gaming.

Sometimes the game runs fine in Proton but there are a couple of small things that don’t work right. The dev could probably iron out the kinks on their end. Usually games just run fine for me.

I will say, Valve needs to fix the Steam overlay in Proton because for some reason the text is so tiny on my 1440 monitor that I literally can’t read it. Give me a UI scale option.

I managed to install a heavily modded version of Fallout 4 with Fallout London through non-steam .exe’s with Proton, so at this point I’m convinced it can handle anything.

Maybe they mean support it in the sense they will enable comparability layers for any anti cheat? I am not familiar with this game or whether they use AC or not; just giving a plausible example of what support may look like.

Also keeping your game proton compatible is still technically "supporting" it.

Sometimes updates break compatibility and I've seen devs release patches to unbork their game.

The application almost certainly runs. It's the anti-cheat that causes issues 99.99% of the time at this point. It relies on certain things being available in the system, and it needs special support to work on Linux (and some features won't work, like having kernel level access to read memory).

If you're using a mainstream AC solution, they've already done most of the work. It often just needs to be enabled and rebuilt with Linux support turned on. If it's custom, then there's a lot more to do.

because usually its the proton team that finds what causes any issue and fixes it in the next update or two.

but if the games dev is actively working on proton, then the compatibility will be better and fewer issues for the proton team to deal with.

It is. I'm a bit confused by that as well.

Because properly packaging/distributing your game is hard. Maintaining a build environment, running tests, having unique deliverables, it all adds effort. With Proton specifically, it's a much lower effort to report. If there is a linux specific bug, it's fine, because Linux isn't officially supported, it's just known to work with Proton. You also only need to ship one binary file (the Windows build), so you don't have to adjust or alter any processes.

This may not be the reason they do it, but there are real reasons.

Valve does not recommend that anymore.

And for good reasons:

Nearly all Linux native games I have from steam do not work any more. Glibc changes. Xorg gone. Other stuff. You would need to maintain and adopt constantly.

Having a product that advertises native Linux support on the storefront but requires Ubuntu 20.04 is nothing we or valve could want

Proton offers a stable surface, and decouples the dependencies

Honestly, the Linux ecosystem is so fragmented that Win32 is the best API for targeting Linux.

Actually good question as they apparently are using an altered version of unreal engine (https://www.wardynamics.com/) UE has linux support, but maybe that got lost in the changed version.

Games are typically made once, given a few patches, then abandoned. They will not keep chasing Linux dependencies forever so things break all the time. Windows is more stubborn about backward compatibility.

If M$ releases a dx13 where the api is worse and the primary feature is copilot integration we might see more vulkan native games. So far they have been smarter than that...

The success of Proton has pretty much killed native Linux builds

Tbh I've always has better luck with Proton versus native builds.

And it is true that performance via Proton can be better than on Windows, so it isn't accurate that there is a performance penalty. In my experience it's usually the opposite. Shader precaching is one major reason.

Honestly, the Linux ecosystem is so fragmented that Win32 is the best API for targeting Linux.

There's not really a performance penalty for Proton. It isn't an emulator (Wine Is Not An Emulator); rather it's a translation layer. It translates the machine code into something your system understands and runs it natively. It isn't creating a fake version of the hardware that runs it, like an emulator does. In fact, Proton sometimes has a performance increase because of the translation. It translates to Vulkan, which is often more performant.

I honestly can't stand Battlefield after playing Squad. I mostly played Squad for a more casual Mil Sim replacement (after not wanting to deal with weekly mandatory hours-long missions with my Arma realism unit, where briefing alone was a good half hour). However, it also pretty much killed any desire I had for Battlefield. It's largely just because of how communal it is. There's a lot more chatting and just hanging out.

Still, I've been watching this game for months now. It seems cool. I'm signed up for testing, but then I read it doesn't support Linux, so I'm out until that's finished, but I did write something asking for Linux support.

Anticheats work fine on linux, the devs generally just have to check a box enabling linux support in the anticheat.

Beancounters don't like that, because linux doesn't let some random program have deeper access to your computer than you yourself have.