Harebrained Schemes have made good on their promise to have a Linux beta for their tactical ‘Mech combat game. It works well with a few caveats.

The Linux version of BATTLETECH [Official Site] has seen some delays since the game’s launch earlier in the year. The communication from the developer has been spotty at times so it’s good to see that they’ve finally gotten around to delivering on a Linux version for the game. It’s not quite bug-free yet so it’s available to download by opting into the “public_beta_linux” branch on Steam.

There’s a few known issues for the game, though none that are real show stoppers:

When customizing the name of a ‘Mech or a Lance, the characters you type are doubled. So a W would appear as WW.

Some menus may be extra light or extra dark depending on your system’s screen resolution.

Hyperlinks are not functional on SteamOS only.

Logging into a Paradox account always ends in a failure on the first attempt on SteamOS only.

Multiplayer on SteamOS has intermittent connection issues (better as host than joiner).

Refreshing the save game list can sometimes hang on the main menu. Restarting the game should fix the issue

The developers have asked that any Linux-specific issues found in the beta should be reported here.

I’ve played a few minutes of this beta and can tell you that it otherwise seems to run just fine. I did part of a skirmish mission and started the campaign and things seem to be running as they should be. I’m looking forward to exploring the game and seeing if it’s any good as I’m a fan of giant robots blowing each other up.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before the developers quash all the bugs and make a full release of the Linux version. It’s been a long wait since the original Kickstarter campaign. At least there’s the silver lining that we’re also getting several months’ worth of updates and quality of life improvements that have been added since launch.

You can get BATTLETECH on Steam. You can also get it on GOG and the Humble Store but note that the opt-in beta is Steam-only.