Well, mostly the virtual shelves since no Linux gamer actually buys physical games (on Linux) in a box. While I do appreciate the convenience that digital games have brought (and how cheap they have become), I can’t help but miss a little the Golden Age of boxed games. I’m not talking about the shitty packaging of console games and their crappy plastic DVD box, but the time when computer games were packaged in beautiful, big carton boxes with beautiful artwork, featuring goodies and surprises as you opened them up. Hell, Colonization came with a 100 pages manual that went far beyond explaining how to play the game, by giving a good account on how the colonization of the New World really happened. Nowadays it’s not unusual for even complex games to ship without a proper manual (Hearts of Iron IV, with a mostly empty wiki at release, and a tutorial that covered only 10% of the game aspects… like WTF?). But I digress.

I came to tell you about some recent Linux releases.

• Pyre, the new title by SuperGiant Games (Bastion, Transistor) is now out. Day-1 release.
• Dragon’s Lair is now on Linux, 34 years after its initial arcade release! But to he honest to you could already play on Daphne for a long time.
• Starcrawler, a dungeon crawler set in a cyberpunk environment. I did not try it but it’s got mixed reviews.
• Albion Online, a new MMORPG, released a Linux client very recently.
• I forgot to mention it before, but end of April the game Next Jump: Shmups Tactics was released on Linux (day-1). It’s very much in the same vein as FTL, while it looks and plays quite differently, you can clearly feel the similarities. Note that this game was actually developed on Linux, using Stencil.
• As mentioned last week Wonderboy 3 is out. Our review is coming up soon.
• Micromachines Word Series was out last month, and you can check out our review.
• Not a Linux release per se, but someone made a nice tutorial to install OverWatch on WINE. It’s a little convoluted but at least it’s explained very well through this video. Maybe that will save you from rebooting if you are into OW.

You should expect the following to be released pretty soon as well:

• The Escapists 2 in August
• Sudden Strike 4 in August
• Full Throttle Remastered Edition at some point (our friend Cheese, whom we interviewed previously, is working on it)
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, it a huge upcoming DLC for XCOM2 that should make the base game even more challenging, introducing new factions, new units, etc… No release date for now but it’s supposed to be “soon”.

That’s it for now. No major AAA release recently, but let’s hope that Feral, Aspyr or VP announces something soon. In the meantime enjoy your summer and your vacation if you have the luxury to take a break!