7000 titles confirmed working out of the box on Proton? That’s all very fine, yes sir, but what if you don’t care about quantity? What if one considers ONLY the most desirable Top 50 games (based on popularity) out there, how good is Linux? That’s the real question, isn’t it ?
Well, I took a look very recently at the top 50 games on Steam with the highest number of concurrent players over the past 2 weeks.
And the verdict is…
Name | Developer | Publisher | Concurrent Users | Platforms | Verdict |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | Valve, Hidden Path Entertainment | Valve | 935189 | WML | Native |
Dota 2 | Valve | Valve | 521391 | WML | Native |
Valheim | Iron Gate AB | Coffee Stain Publishing | 224934 | WL | Native |
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | KRAFTON, Inc. | KRAFTON, Inc. | 187140 | W | No Go |
Apex Legends | Respawn Entertainment | Electronic Arts | 135993 | W | No Go |
Rust | Facepunch Studios | Facepunch Studios | 113780 | WM | No Go |
Grand Theft Auto V | Rockstar North | Rockstar Games | 86330 | W | Proton |
Team Fortress 2 | Valve | Valve | 83162 | WML | Native |
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege | Ubisoft Montreal | Ubisoft | 65661 | W | No Go |
Rocket League | Psyonix LLC | Psyonix LLC | 60503 | W | Proton |
ARK: Survival Evolved | Studio Wildcard, Instinct Games, Efecto Studios, Virtual Basement LLC | Studio Wildcard | 57952 | WML | Native |
Destiny 2 | Bungie | Bungie | 49895 | W | No Go |
Warframe | Digital Extremes | Digital Extremes | 43494 | W | Proton Potential |
Wallpaper Engine | Wallpaper Engine Team | Wallpaper Engine Team | 40124 | W | No Go |
Dead by Daylight | Behaviour Interactive Inc. | Behaviour Interactive Inc. | 38003 | W | No Go |
Stardew Valley | ConcernedApe | ConcernedApe | 35689 | WML | Native |
Black Desert Online | Pearl Abyss | Pearl Abyss | 34723 | W | No Go |
War Thunder | Gaijin Entertainment | Gaijin Distribution KFT | 33489 | WML | Native |
Terraria | Re-Logic | Re-Logic | 33305 | WML | Native |
Garry's Mod | Facepunch Studios | Valve | 31795 | WML | Native |
Path of Exile | Grinding Gear Games | Grinding Gear Games | 31510 | WM | Proton |
World of Tanks Blitz | Wargaming Group Limited | Wargaming Group Limited | 29874 | WM | Proton |
Euro Truck Simulator 2 | SCS Software | SCS Software | 29624 | WML | Native |
PAYDAY 2 | OVERKILL - a Starbreeze Studio. | Starbreeze Publishing AB | 27774 | WL | Native |
Unturned | Smartly Dressed Games | Smartly Dressed Games | 24018 | WML | Native |
Brawlhalla | Blue Mammoth Games | Ubisoft | 23052 | WM | Proton |
Monster Hunter: World | CAPCOM Co., Ltd. | CAPCOM Co., Ltd. | 19720 | W | Proton |
Sid Meier's Civilization V | Firaxis Games, Aspyr (Mac), Aspyr (Linux) | 2K, Aspyr (Mac), Aspyr (Linux) | 19079 | WML | Native |
Counter-Strike | Valve | Valve | 16841 | WML | Native |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | CD PROJEKT RED | CD PROJEKT RED | 16352 | W | Proton |
Arma 3 | Bohemia Interactive | Bohemia Interactive | 16163 | W | Proton |
Cities: Skylines | Colossal Order Ltd. | Paradox Interactive | 15995 | WML | Native |
SMITE | Titan Forge Games | Hi-Rez Studios | 15379 | W | No Go |
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord | TaleWorlds Entertainment | TaleWorlds Entertainment | 14269 | W | Proton Potential |
Among Us | Innersloth | Innersloth | 14100 | W | Proton |
Cyberpunk 2077 | CD PROJEKT RED | CD PROJEKT RED | 14087 | W | Proton Potential |
Dying Light | Techland | Techland Publishing | 13773 | WML | Native |
Fallout 4 | Bethesda Game Studios | Bethesda Softworks | 13456 | W | Proton Potential |
Left 4 Dead 2 | Valve | Valve | 12951 | WML | Native |
Phasmophobia | Kinetic Games | Kinetic Games | 12884 | W | Proton |
Paladins | Evil Mojo Games | Hi-Rez Studios | 12250 | W | No Go |
Don't Starve Together | Klei Entertainment | Klei Entertainment | 11176 | WML | Native |
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout | Mediatonic | Devolver Digital | 7368 | W | No Go |
World of Warships | Wargaming Group Limited | Wargaming Group Limited | 7087 | W | Proton |
The Forest | Endnight Games Ltd | Endnight Games Ltd | 6818 | W | Proton |
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Bethesda Game Studios | Bethesda Softworks | 6654 | W | Proton |
NBA 2K20 | Visual Concepts | 2K | 6278 | W | Proton Potential |
Raft | Redbeet Interactive | Axolot Games | 5675 | W | Proton |
Age of Empires II (2013) | Skybox Labs, Hidden Path Entertainment, Ensemble Studios, Forgotten Empires | Xbox Game Studios | 5543 | W | Proton |
Dota Underlords | Valve | Valve | 5123 | WML | Native |
By the way, let me first say that Valheim is absolutely killing it. For a game that’s just recently launched and from a small studio, getting to the top 3 of concurrent players is almost unheard of. Turns out that I have been playing it too, and you should expect to read something about it pretty soon. But more on that later.

So what did we get among the Top 50 games on Steam?
- 34 games overall working well on Linux out of 50: 68%.
- Among these 34, 19 have native clients, and 15 run well with Proton.
- An extra five games kind of work on Proton but not perfectly (example: Cyberpunk 2077, which works OK on AMD but is kind of broken on Nvidia, still)
- 11 games are borked (22%) in one way or another.
(Note: ARMA3 is considered as ‘working’ even though BattleEye prevents you from joining official servers. It it still, however, possible to host your own multiplayer sessions with friends for Co-op).
We can see from the above that Proton is a major enabler: it makes the compatibility on Linux jump from 19/50 (38%) to somewhere between 68% and 78%.
Among the 11 games that are considered borked:
- Most of them do not work because of EAC (7)
- One of them (Destiny 2) because of another DRM/anti-cheat system
- Another one relies on BattleEye
- and Black Desert Online checks for very specific Windows drivers or properties and does not launch otherwise.
We can see how big of a deal EAC represents (or even Anti-Cheat systems in general). If we had some kind of EAC support, we could bring the compatibility in top 50 from 68% (34/50) to something closer to 82% (41/50). That would be a major breakthrough for all those games that rely heavily on multiplayer features. Turns out a lot of predictions we received for 2021 are about Proton/WINE finally implementing support for EAC – that’s not even a rumor, we know it’s actively being worked on in the WINE project. The only question is WHEN, not IF.
Last but not least, Mac has ONLY 21 out of the Top 50 games working… 42%! I will let that sink in a little. We already know that Linux has become a much better platform than “native Mac”, but the gap is now very wide and will keep increasing going forward while Mac is pretty much stuck in the dust with their non-existing Proton support.
Of course, the real objective is to get to 100%, be it by more native titles and/or better Proton support.
But the glass is not even half full anymore, it’s getting refilled as we speak.
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[…] último dato, según Boiling Steam hablas de que el 70% de los juegos mas populares de Steam funciona en Linux, solo hay 19 que sean […]
[…] Steam están también disponibles para ser jugados en Linux. Según el experimento que han hecho en Boling Steam, el 70% de los 50 juegos más populares de Steam funciona en Linux, lo cual incluye, por supuesto, […]
The problem with proton is that it maybe works, it work to Huey and Dewey, but not for Louie
That’s a problem being actively worked on by Valve with the latest Proton encapsulation strategies they have put in place since 5.13.6 and Soldier. Eventually it should run pretty much the same everywhere (eventually).
Why do you believe EAC support is being worked on?
Because… it’s a fact ?
EAC themselves: https://twitter.com/TeddyEAC/status/1125678854390067200
Tim Sweeney: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1150536446807334914
Both of those are from 2019, and nothing has been done since. It will *not* arrive in 2021 or even 2022. Don’t get people’s hopes up.
I know for a fact that WINE developers have been working on EAC support for several years. Because something is being worked on does not mean it ships in the immediate future.
People in the Discord for development on it say otherwise, it sounds like your talking rubbish.
I was not aware that the people working on WINE use Discord.
Yes, Some of them do, same for the Proton devs. EAC is not being worked on.
Nobody is working on EAC specifically. What you have to look for is the NTDLL rewrite.That’s what will enable a variety of anti-cheats (not just EAC) to be supported in the future.
“Last but not least, Mac has ONLY 21 out of the Top 50 games working […] Mac is pretty much stuck in the dust with their non-existing Proton support.” Even if you care about those other 29 games (how many games do you need to play, really?), that’s a rather one-sided view. You could equally have said: Now that we’ve seen how successful Proton can be, we just have to have somebody (Valve or otherwise) produce a Proton-for-Mac. Then the Mac would have even better gaming support than Linux. There’s no technical limitation that makes this impossible. All of the… Read more »
I agree, there is no technical limitation for a Proton-like solution to work on Mac. The largest hurdle is not technical: it’s that Apple has no interest in gaming on their own computers, which makes it a risky business to invest in (OpenGL is hardly supported anymore, Vulkan drivers are nonexistent, which means you have to write everything for Metal, and now you have a mix of x86 and ARM).
What does Apple’s alleged lack of ‘interest in gaming’ have to do with it? Proton was based on Wine, which was developed entirely *despite* Microsoft, not due to any help they provided.
Khronos has a Vulkan-on-Metal translation layer, and it works well. Apple’s OS translates x86-to-ARM, and if that isn’t good enough for you, there are FOSS and third-party alternatives.
First you admit that there’s no technical limitation, but then you try to list some technical limitations, but they’re actually solved problems. What exactly is the “risky business”?
The “no-interest in gaming” part of Apple has technical implications. This is why of the main reasons that for years, Mac users were stuck with outdated 4.1 OpenGL support on their machines – and that certainly had an impact on what WINE and other projects could pull off on Mac at the time. You can also see how the lack of commitment impacts Codeweavers (developers of WINE) in the podcast we did with James Ramey (president of Codeweavers): https://boilingsteam.com/podcast-with-james-ramey-full-transcript/#mac I try to look at what Apple is doing objectively. I see a lot of concerns for gamers in the direction… Read more »
Macs are walled garden units, I don’t think FOSS, which is about freedom in software, should want to have anything to do with the Mac.
What does FOSS have to do with any of this? Neither Windows, Steam, Proton, nor a single one of these games is FOSS. And what does “walled garden unit” even mean? Apple’s *App Store* is often described as a “walled garden”, but Mac software doesn’t have to use that, and most games don’t. You’ve always been able to run ordinary downloaded applications on macOS just like on Windows. Besides, all of these games (even the ones which run natively on the Mac today) are distributed via Steam, which is also a “walled garden”. So is every game console ever made.… Read more »