As we reported on the hints of this happening recently, the SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics is now officially available on Linux. As I mentioned in the previous article, I thought they would do this to go along with the release on PS4 and Xbox One and I was right on the money there.

Not only did they add official Linux support, they also upgraded it with some fancy new features like:

Two-player online multiplayer

Leaderboards

Challenge Modes – short challenges give old favourites a new twist

Additional graphics filters & border options

ROMs from other regions for games with significant differences

Fast-forward and rewind

Sprite limit disable

Mirror mode – reverse the screen for a fresh challenge

VR support

It includes over 50 titles with some absolutely classics like Golden Axe, Gunstar Heroes (a personal favourite!), Sonic, Streets of Rage 2 and so on. The online support is interesting, as it allows you to actually play a game while you're waiting for matchmaking too (you can also invite a friend).

That not enough for you? Well, they lowered the price of the entire collection too! It's now $29.99 / €29.99 / £24.99 (still showing up as the old price for me) and you can find it on Steam. Individual games are supposed to see a price drop too, for those like me who need to complete their collection.

It’s very interesting to see SEGA getting more of their stuff on Linux. One can only hope this is a sign of them being willing to get more of their developed and published titles eventually onto Linux too—that would be sweet.

As someone who grew up with the Mega Drive, this is awesome to have on Linux. I actually own Gunstar Heroes on Steam, so I was able to give it a quick test and it does appear to work perfectly including the Steam Controller working without issues: