The only game I have ever played is FIFA on a PS4. Now I have a gaming laptop but have no idea how I should go about playing games on Linux. Appreciate your help in advance!
So steam is your best bet for gaming on linux overwll. For specific games:
Stellaris - space empire game, grow and manage your fledgling galactic empire with a large amount of flavour to change playthru to playthru. From being peace loving spacegoats to horrible all consuming bugs, its up to you.
Civilization series - similar idea to Stellaris but taking control of various famous world leaders to grow a nation state
Rimworld - its the Sims but you can commit warcrimes. Colony management game. Take control of 1 - 5 'pawns' and try to survive in the harsh wilderness as long as you can
Factorio - build a factory. start as one person with a pickax and slowly build things to automate things so you can automate more things. The factory MUST grow.
Terraria - sandbox side scrolling adventure game. Hunt down monsters, ore and loot to craft better weapons and armor. invite local townsfolk into your well crafted box huts and create a little village
Counter strike 2 - premier clicking heads simulator. Very competitive fps game but even if your new just play a little death match to get used to shooting and moving, then jump right into competative. Tons of idiots but dw about toxic fucks. Mute them and have fun shooting people
Old school runescape - sandbox mmorpg. Start as a useless nobody, level skills by clicking till you have carpel tunnel syndrome and wonder where the last 1000hrs of your life went.
Kenshi - sandbox RTS/RPG game. Wander the desert, get attacked by a wandering pack of dogs and get patched up and captured by wandering slavers. Attempt a dramatic escape and lose an arm. Steal a prosthetic robot arm and run for the hills. Gather some followers and start a base. Then liberate the slaves from the slave colony you used to belong to
Deadcells - action side scrolling roguelike. You get one life to attempt to slay the hand of the king. 100s of different weapons and layout changes each attempt. Use a frying pan to smack the shit outta baddies or a giant broadsword to cleave them in half
Stardew valley - comfy relaxing farming Sim. take over your grandfather's neglected farm. Grow crops, raise animals and become friends with the local towns folk. Argue with the broader stardew community about who the best person to marry is
Portal 1/2 - certified classic puzzle games. Shoot portals, solve puzzle and make the machine intelligence progressively angrier
Half life 1/2 - classic fps games that set the stage for storytelling in modern fps game. Recommend black mesa for HL1 over the og version
BioShock 1 - fps storytelling at its arguably peak form. Would you kindly play this game?
Disco elysium - unorthodox RPG game. Solve a murder mystery as a cop with no memory. Actually a novel in disguise with fantastic voice acting
Metro 2033/34 - another contender for fps storytelling at its finest. Can you save the people from the menace plaguing the Moscow metro stations?
Minecraft - THE sandbox survival game. Dig some tunnels, build a castle. Slay hordes of zombies, farm some pigs and wheat. Its been popular for a decade+ for good reason.
Dota2 - I dont play this myself but you said addictive and plenty of people have dumped 1000s of hours into this game. I'd say league of legends but that requires more effort to play on linux
All I can think of rn, besides dota all of these games have eaten 100+ hrs of my life at some point or another. These titles broadly cover my own taste in video games so I hope you find 1 or 2 to your own liking
I play dota 2, community can be toxic, but if you are not a snowflake or know how to use the mute button, its good.
I played this game way before dota 2, when it was a Warcraft 3 map, so I have been playing dota for about 18 years. Can confirm, it is addictive, and I believe it is one of the best competitive games out there.
That, as others have mentioned, is a moderately difficult question for us without knowing what you like or what the specs on your laptop are.
If you install Steam, they have a pretty generous return policy. You just need to act within 2 weeks of the purchase OR before you hit a total of two hours played in that game - whichever comes first. I like Steam because the Proton compatibility layer built in makes gaming on Linux so incredibly easy.
I'm hesitant to do so because you undoubtedly like different things, but here is a short list of some of the games I've played that I really enjoyed based on total time played.
Sid Meier's Civilization (the whole series is good, but 5 is my favorite)
Stellaris
Battletech
Satisfactory
Valheim
Football Manager (think of this title as the complex strategy game to FIFA's action game)Honestly look down the 250 top rated games on steam. Something may appeal to you. Then go on ProtonDB to check that the game works ok on Linux.
Steam is probably the best platform for gaming on Linux right now. Here are some games I recommend that run well on Linux:
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (the spiritual successor of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
- Romancing SaGa 3 (retro JRPG that involves non-linear, open-world exploration)
- Octopath Traveler 2 (another JRPG; you don't need to play the first game in the series to enjoy this game)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist Link Evolution (not a freemium game!)
Battle for Wesnoth is my go to Linux for a decade at this point. Free fantasy turn based strategy game with fun campaigns.
And is a great starting point for new gamers on linux, since it's free and available at almost any distro's software sources.
Minecraft is pretty fun, especially if you're new to gaming. Lots of different ways to play.
And Minetest is a great FOSS clone.
Not really sure what would be your type of game but here's some that I've played that I found addicting, from various genres. All of these are on Steam and I've played on Linux.
Definitely look at Portal 2. Great game that's easy to get into.
If you played and liked Portal 2, also take a look at Portal, The Talos Principle, and Q.U.B.E. (I probably can't go wrong recommending puzzle games)
Maybe also Mirror's Edge (2008).
Baldur's Gate 3 is one I've put a lot of time into recently.
Chill exploration game that I couldn't put down and am still obsessed with: INFRA
If you think you could like base builder games: RimWorld, Factorio, Satisfactory
And then some absolute PC classics: Half-Life (1998, or you can also play the remake Black Mesa), System Shock (play the 2023 remake), Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
Go with a classic: Minecraft Java. Bonus - use the prism launcher for mod packs. Vanilla MC is kinda boring (at least once you see all the bonkers stuff mods can add, just like Skyrim XD )
If you're going to be on Steam, and become a gamer, the other suggestions over here are good.
However, if games aren't really your thing, and you just want a casual gaming experience, then I'd suggest a few Linux native games, that exist in all distro repos: gweled, ltris, lbreakout2, lgeneral, frozen-bubble, gnome-mahjongg, gnome-tetravex, xye, kobo-deluxe, aisleriot, powermanga, open-invaders, supertux, pingus, berusky, opentyrian (requires data from the dos game, which are also free to download elsewhere).
Then there are some more heavy hitters (still native linux games), like freeciv-gtk3, opencol, 0ad, tuxracer, lincity-ng, simutrans etc.
A lot of these recommendations are for advanced gamers.
Some more entry level games include Portal and journey.
Slay the spire is also excellent if you like card games.
I loved Slay the Spire but eventually having the same enemies every game and the luck required to build a solid deck wore me out. Luckily I slayed the spire once. It was as the Defect, that's like the easiest build because the automated orbs blast the hell out of everything. But it counts and I can finally rest.
Anyway, looking forward to Spire II, will probably buy it the instant it is available.
Don't miss this entire genre: classic LucasArts point-and-click adventure games! Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle and Monkey Island are a few of the stand-outs for me, and they all run on Linux via the amazing ScummVM.
