The more complicated answer to this is that it sounds too good to be true for a reason. What does that actually mean for us Linux users? In short, it means that Linux computers can now play all 27,000 of those games without needing to configure something like PlayOnLinux or Lutris to do so! Which, let me tell you, can be quite the headache at times. With proton, more Windows games are available for Linux on Steam

The feature is still in beta though, so you must opt into the beta Steam client in order to take advantage of this functionality. Yes, the tool is open-source, and Valve has made the source code available on Github. Now, that problem is a thing of the past since this week Valve announced a new update to Steam Play that adds a forked version of Wine to the Linux Steam clients called Proton. For me, though there are many titles I would love the opportunity to play, this has never been a make-or-break problem since almost all of my favorite titles are available on Linux since I primarily play indie and retro games anyway. Now, 5,000 games may be a lot, but it isn’t 27,000 games, that’s for sure.Īnd though almost every new indie game seems to launch with a Linux release, we are still left without a way to play many Triple-A titles. In fact, many people wouldn’t even consider switching to Linux simply because most of the games they want to play aren’t available on the platform.Īt the time of writing this article, Linux has just over 5,000 games available on Steam compared to the library’s almost 27,000 total games. It’s no secret that the Linux gaming library offers only a fraction of what the Windows library offers.

Steam play windows games on mac