Are there many high quality commercial games available for Linux? That’s one of the frequently asked questions we receive in our mailbox every week.

It is true to say that the number of commercial games released for Linux each year remains small compared to other platforms. Nevertheless, we faced lots of difficult choices compiling a list of 42 of the best commercial Linux games. The selection we have finally chosen covers a wide range of different game genres, so hopefully there will be something here that will interest all.

To be eligible for inclusion in this list each game needed to be:

Released under a proprietary license with a fee required either to purchase the game, or a monthly charge

Not require Wine to run. Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows software

Probably the best known game developer in the industry supporting Linux is id Software. They have ported many of their star titles to Linux, including Quake 4 and Doom 3. The other major innovator in the video game industry is Epic Games. They produced one of the all time classics, Unreal Tournament 2004, which we agonised over whether to include, but the list was already heavyweight in quality action games.

In any feature on Linux commercial games, there also deserves to be a special mention for Loki Entertainment Software. Between 1998 and 2001, they ported a number of games to Linux, almost all to an extremely high standard. Classic titles that spring to mine include Heretic II, Quake III Arena (featured below), Soldier of Fortune, Tribes 2, Myth II: Soulblighter, and Heavy Gear II.

Following in Loki’s footsteps, Linux Game Publishing was established in 2001 to port commercial games to Linux. Their first port was Creatures: Internet Edition.

Advocates of free software may dislike the presence of commercial games. However, having Linux games released commercially sometimes indirectly benefits gamers who prefer, or can only afford, to play freeware games. The most notable example of an awesome commercial game that was subsequently released as freeware is Wolftenstein: Enemy Territory.

Please appreciate that the list below is constantly evolving, and only represents a snapshot in 2008. There are some very exciting games to be released shortly for Linux. Watch out for Rage, Unreal Tournament 3, Sacred Gold, Jack Keane, X3: Reunion, and Celetania in particular. It’s highly probable all of these games will feature in a later ‘Best of 42’ article.

Now, let’s scrutinize the 42 games at hand. For each game we have compiled its own portal page, providing screenshots of the game in action, a full description of the game, with an in-depth analysis of the features of the game, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Return to our complete collection of recommended free and open source software including our latest additions.