Warzone 2100, the real-time strategy/tactics game that was originally released in 1999 as a proprietary commercial game only to then be made open-source several years later, is out this week with its version 4.0 milestone.

While Godot receives much of the - well deserved - attention when it comes to open-source, cross-platform game engines, another deserving contender is the Flax Engine that just reached v1.0 last year after going public in 2018.

Besides Valheim, there hasn't been much in the way of native Linux game releases recently to really get excited about with much of the activity these days being through Valve's Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux. But in April there will be at least two high profile native Linux game releases.

While SDL2-enabled games/applications can already work on PipeWire-based systems like the forthcoming Fedora Workstation 34 thanks to the PulseAudio compatibility layer, the SDL2 library has merged initial support for interfacing with PipeWire.

Building off the recent DXVK 1.8 release is a new point release with more performance optimizations, game fixes, and related work to this Direct3D-on-Vulkan translation layer that is extremely popular with Linux gamers.

ET Legacy 2.77 is out today as the newest version of this open-source game project continuing to advance the open-sourced Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory game from the early 2000's.

When it comes to original, open-source computer games the 0 A.D. real-time strategy game is among the best. The game has been developed as open-source for more than a decade for this ancient warfare themed game. The prior 0 A.D. Alpha 23 release happened back in May 2018 while now it's finally been succeeded by 0 A.D. Alpha 24.

DXVK 1.8 is out as the newest feature release of this translation layer for Direct3D over Vulkan.

It's approaching one year since the proposal of FUTEX2 for addressing shortcomings of the existing FUTEX system call and allowing the semantics to better match that of the Windows behavior, which is of use when running Windows games on Linux via Steam Play's Wine/Proton. In the end the FUTEX2 system call can lead to lower CPU utilization and in turn allowing for greater Linux gaming performance.

The Dark Mod that began as a total conversion mod for Doom 3 but evolved into a standalone game making use of the open-source id Tech 4 game engine is out with a big update. This is one of the few open-source games making use of the public id Tech 4 code-base and with today's v2.09 update is a large rewrite to its graphics back-end.

It's been eighteen years since the game Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was released while thanks to the it becoming open-source along with the id Tech 3 engine, it's still being advanced by the open-source community in 2021.

Proton 5.13-6 is out in time for the weekend Linux gamer in providing the latest functionality for this Wine downstream that powers Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux.

Valve and their partners at CodeWeavers have put out a release candidate for Proton 5.13-6 as the latest version of their Wine-based software for running Windows games on Linux via Steam Play.

The work-in-progress FUTEX2 system call for improving Windows games on Linux via Wine / Steam Play remains one of the items left to be addressed in 2021 with the work on that being funded by Valve and tackled by Collabora engineers.

In addition to VKD3D-Proton working on support for DXR ray-tracing another high profile Direct3D 12 feature being implemented on top of Vulkan is support for variable rate shading.

On top of Godot 4.0 having a Vulkan renderer, native Wayland bits, and other graphics improvements, it's also seeing significant CPU and GPU optimizations.

Nearly a decade ago we were intrigued by Unvanquished as one of the most interesting open-source game/engine projects of the time. It was peculiar in going through dozens of alpha releases prior to drying up a few years ago. There hasn't been any major release yet past the prior alpha state but the project is in fact still moving along and issued their first new (point) release of the year as well as rolling out a new online updater.

For those interested in Godot as the premiere open-source 2D/3D game engine or just looking for some interesting technical talks to enjoy this weekend, the first GodotCon Online is today.

Lutris as the open-source Linux game manager that makes it easy to install Wine game as well as various emulator games, Steam titles, and more, is out with an interesting update to kick off the new year.

The numbers Steam posted on New Year's Day for the December 2020 Linux gaming marketshare showed a drop of 0.33% down to just 0.57%. That is a rather large drop but now Valve has updated their numbers and point to Linux still regressing percentage wise but not as bad as originally reported.

It's been a turbulent year and 2020 is certainly ending interesting in the Linux/open-source space... If it wasn't odd enough seeing Sony providing a new official Linux driver for their PlayStation 5 DualSense controller for ending out the year, there is also a new Linux port to the Nintendo 64 game console... Yes, a brand new port to the game console that launched more than two decades ago.

If you miss flying this holiday season due to the pandemic, you can at least experience it virtually by flying your own aircraft with the open-source, cross-platform FlightGear flight simulator software.

The highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 game will run on Linux on launch day by means of Steam Play!

A new SDL2 library release is being prepared for this widely-used, cross-platform abstraction layer popular with games for supporting a wide range of input devices / peripherals and other vast subsystem coverage in a portable manner.

Proton 5.13-3 is out today as the latest version of this Wine downstream that powers Valve's Steam Play for running Windows games rather well on Linux.

The Syscall User Dispatch support looks like it should be mainlined for the Linux 5.11 kernel. This functionality is important for modern Windows games running on Linux under Wine / Proton.

DXVK 1.7.3 is out as the latest stable update to this project implementing the Direct3D APIs atop Vulkan for accelerating the Linux gaming experience.

Unigine 2 remains one of the most visually stunning game and simulation engines out there. That's even with still using OpenGL (or Direct3D 11 also on Windows) while their Vulkan renderer remains in the works. Unigine 2.13 is out this week as their latest iteration of this visually incredible engine with first-rate Linux support.

The Godot Game Engine has been funding work on a GPU-based texture compressor to deal with the issue that importing textures to this leading open-source game engine can often be painfully slow.

Earlier this year we reported on Linux kernel work for better handling Windows games/apps that make system call instructions that bypass the Windows API. Directly making the system calls without going through the WinAPI has become an increasingly common occurrence for modern Windows games, likely as part of their Digital Rights Management schemes. Syscall User Dispatch is now the latest take on that effort.