Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Coming Soon To Linux

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, the long-awaited title by id Software and Splash Damage, launched today in North America. While a Linux-native client of this game isn't available today, it will be available shortly. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is four years old, but it remains a very popular freeware game for Linux users with a native client and its excellent game-play. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a sequel to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but with the game taking place in the Quake universe, there aren't many similar attributes. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars introduces controllable vehicles and aircrafts with much larger maps compared to past id Software titles. The two sides battling each other in ET: Quake Wars is the Strogg and GDF (Global Defense Force).

The Enemy Territory: Quake Wars client is supported for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, while there are also console versions for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Unfortunately, the Linux client doesn't ship on the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars DVD and isn't available at this time for download. However, it is coming. In August we told you that we were on the private ET: Quake Wars beta list for the Linux client and that still is the case. So far the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Linux experience has been very pleasing with minimal problems, but that's to be expected from beta software.

Back in October of 2005 when Quake 4 was released, a native Linux client was not available on the launch day either. However, the Quake 4 Linux client was introduced just two days later. We haven't been briefed on when the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Linux client will arrive, but based upon the turn-around time for the Quake 4 introduction and with what we've seen from the ET:QW private beta, we would expect to see the native Linux client within the next week. Hopefully the Linux client will arrive by the end of the week.

One interesting thing to note is that the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Linux client uses the Mojo Installer as the Loki installer/setup replacement. When the Quake Wars client for Linux is publicly available, we will be delivering a plethora of benchmarks using ATI and NVIDIA hardware as well as other coverage. With id Software's MegaTextures present and ET: Quake Wars being able to take advantage of multiple processing cores, we may deliver a processor comparison as well. If you missed it, a client for Unreal Tournament 3 will also be made available for Linux and it will ship on the game's DVD.