Alienware, a computer manufacturer that is well known for the quality and power of its systems, has partnered up with Crytek for a very interesting goal, to ignite Linux-based game development.

You might ask yourself why does Alienware care about Linux development at all? The answer is actually pretty simple. It has an important stake in it. The company has announced a while ago that it is going to develop one of the SteamBox consoles designed by Valve.

As you all know, Valve also released a few months ago a new operating system, SteamOS, which is powered by a Linux distribution called Debian. There are a number of games already launched for SteamOS, but there are nowhere near enough triple AAA titles available for the Linux gaming community.

“Crytek will integrate the Alienware AlienFX lighting control software with its state-of-the-art CRYENGINE development solution. In addition, Alienware also provided Crytek with Alienware systems for the development and promotion of CRYENGINE with full native Linux support,” reads the announcement from Alienware (it also happens to be a subsidiary of Dell, which already ships PCs running Ubuntu).

Crytek has announced during the recent GDC conference (Game Developer Conference) that its CRYENGINE will soon be able to run Linux games and that it will be used in Linux game development. This was great news for the Linux fans because there are very few engines that are capable of offering games of higher quality.

This status quo is about to change. Many companies have announced their intentions to participate in the Linux effort. Valve has pledged Linux support from its Source engine, Epic Games has just announced that Unreal 4 will feature Linux support, and now Crytek is ready to do the same thing.

“To support the growth of Linux gaming, Alienware has provided Crytek with systems for CRYENGINE. Crytek is using Alienware X51 desktops to serve as performance benchmark systems, and to showcase the new tools. Alienware also provided its Alienware 14 and 17 gaming laptops for the promotion of CRYENGINE and to demonstrate AlienFX integration,” is also noted in the announcement.

It will take a while for new games based on these engines to reach the Linux gaming community, maybe even a couple of years, but the number of changes for the open source platform have increased exponentially in the past year or so, and there is no reason to think that they will stop. Keep watching the news, more companies will soon pledge their support for the Linux platform.