Continuing on the ProtonDB analysis, here’s something that is probably useful for most of you, me included: the list of NEW games that had no report until June 2019 on ProtonDB, by order of popularity along with their ProtonDB rating. It tells you what people are trying out on Linux and how well they are supposed to work, so for me it’s almost as good as a shopping list. Here’s the Top 20:

Rank Title Reports Gold+ 1 Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night 60 50 2 My Friend Pedro 27 20 3 Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 19 19 4 SpaceEngine 11 9 5 Muse Dash 9 8 6 OCTOPATH TRAVELER™ 9 7 7 Cooking Simulator 6 2 8 Monster Girl Island: Prologue 6 4 9 Overcrowd: A Commute ‘Em Up 5 4 10 Trover Saves the Universe 5 0 11 ZACH-LIKE 5 0 12 Devolver Bootleg 4 4 13 F1® 2019 Anniversary Edition 4 1 14 Pocket Rogues 4 3 15 Rescue HQ – The Tycoon 4 3 16 Children of Morta 3 0 17 Cris Tales 3 3 18 HARDCORE MECHA 3 2 19 Reventure 3 3 20 Sankaku Renai: Love Triangle Trouble 3 3

So… a few observations first: 15 games out of 20 are reported to work well, almost out of the box with Proton (Gold and Platinum ratings included). That’s some serious progress there.

The most popular title has been, OF COURSE, the latest game by Igarashi, who is famous for his work on the Castlevania series and more particularly Symphony of the Night, which is in my opinion the best Castlevania game ever made. Bloodstained was supposed to get a Linux release but they decided the cancel it during development because of some stupid middleware they chose (!) but once again Proton saves the day and you can pretty much play it out of the box on Proton. It’s been getting excellent reviews so far.

The second most popular title (far behind!) is My Friend Pedro, a 2D-like shooter with bullet time mode a la Max Payne – here it is running on Ubuntu with Steam Play:

Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2, is a 3D platformer reminiscent of the old 3D games from the PS1 era. It does not look great, but it may be aimed at younger audiences I guess? Here it is running on Proton again:

Space Engine is not a game per se, rather a universe simulator. It looks gorgeous and lets you explore any planet in the galaxy (of course, this is not based on actual data since we know very little besides the boundaries of our solar system):

Muse Dash is a rythm game with strong Japanese/anime vibes. If are in lack of something like Taiko the Tasujin, this may be something to strive for:

Last but not least, Octopath Traveller is a new retro-looking RPG made by Square Enix and Acquire. It’s some serious fan service for those want like large pixels like they never existed before LCD screens with 3D on top like it never existed at the time either. I find the style questionable but I have heard good things otherwise. HexDSL did a video about it:

And that’s pretty much it for the new games that were tested for Proton in June 2019!

BoilingSteam lets you access our content for free, but writing articles is a constant investment. We don't use ads or sponsporship, help us make our activities sustainable by donating via Patreon or LiberaPay if you prefer it anonymous. Note that Patreon supporters get the weekly or twice-a-week Proton Deals Newsletter to help them save time and money when buying games for Linux. You can follow what we do via our newsletter, our RSS feed, our Mastodon profile or our Twitter feed. We also have Peertube and Youtube channels. If you'd like to chat, you can also find us on #boilingsteam:matrix.org.