After a rather short testing period with the release candidates only being announced a few days ago, Valve has now pushed out the official release of Steam Play Proton 5.13-6.

If you're not clear on what Proton and Steam Play are, be sure to check out our constantly updated dedicated page . It's a special compatibility layer for running Windows games and apps from Steam on Linux.

What's new and improved in Proton 5.13-6? Here's the improvements and fixes to be found:

• Previously in Experimental: Fixed Cyberpunk 2077 world sound issues
• Previously in Experimental: Improved controller support and hotplugging in Yakuza Like a Dragon, Subnautica, DOOM (2016), and Virginia
• Nioh 2 is now playable
• Fixed black screen on focus loss in DOOM Eternal on AMD
• Restored VR support in No Man's Sky
• Voice chat in Deep Rock Galactic is now functional
• Better support for PlayStation 5 controllers
• Sound in Dark Sector is working now
• Fixed Need for Speed (2015) hang on AMD
• More fixes for game input being active while the Steam overlay is up

The full Proton changelog can be viewed here as normal.

How to update? Simply ensure you have Proton 5.13 installed on Steam, it will update as other apps and games do normally through Steam directly.

A fresh biweekly development release is out for the Windows compatibility layer Wine with Wine 6.2 bundling up more of the latest and greatest into a suitable release for you to try.

For newer readers and Linux users here's a refresher - Wine is a compatibility layer built for operating systems like Linux, macOS and BSD. The idea is to allow other platforms to run games and applications only built and supported for Windows. It's also part of what makes up Steam Play Proton . Once a year or so, all the development is bundled into a stable release.

Here's what's new in Wine 6.2:

• Mono engine updated to version 6.0.0, with DirectX support.
• Support for NTDLL debugger APIs.
• More WinRT support in WIDL.
• Xbox One controller fixes on Mac.
• Various bug fixes.

On the subject of bug fixes they noted 51 as solved, one of them dating back to 2007 - although a lot of older bugs were fixed some time ago, each release sees them noted as solved since being checked over. Some of the newer fixes include: Game Protect Kit protected games fixes, World of Tanks, Hitman: Absolution, Ryse: Son of Rome, Shadow Warrior 2, WRC 5 and multiple more.

See the release notes here .

Do you enjoy setting up elaborate production chains and resource management tycoon style gameplay? Mini Countries offers up a very curious take on it all. Note : key provided by the developer.

Each level offers up, as the name suggests, a mini country. Over time new cities pop up all over the map, and it's your job to satisfy their resource demands. Functionally, it feels quite a bit like Train Valley 2 in the way you're drawing up networks across the map. Here it gets just as complicated with you needing to setup the production, then transport the goods to a city and then deal with the cities that don't have direct connections to resources as you then begin to ferry resources between cities.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Getting to grips with the transport system takes a little time, as each city and production building have limits on the amount of transport connections they can have so it all takes a bit of planning. That's the puzzling part and what makes it quite interesting to play through. It has some nice replay value too thanks to the randomization of cities. Each time you replay a level, the position of cities will be different so it forces you to think anew each time. The levels aren't particularly long either, so each level gives a tasty bite-size puzzling strategy experience.

Like most puzzle games it starts off seriously tame and then gradually sprinkles in the difficulty. Don't be fooled by the first few levels, the design really comes through once you learn the basics and it starts getting you to do a whole lot more. Lots of moving pieces and it looks wonderful while doing so too thanks to the soft colours and sweet visuals.

Features:

• Build trade buildings to produce resources in your country
• Make sufficient storage buildings available
• Transport resources from storage buildings to demanding cities
• Choose new items each month to bring your country forward
• Plan your resource production according to different seasons
• Upgrade resources by constructing industry buildings
• Import resources which are not produced in your country
• Export resources to generate knowledge
• Integrate famous landmarks into your country
• Decide on one branch for the development of your cities: Workers' cities allow trade and industry buildings to produce resources faster and science cities improve the growth rate and thus the generation of further knowledge points

You can buy Mini Countries on itch.io and Steam .

It was clear from the moment it release that Iron Gate was onto something with Valheim, their Norse mythology and Vikings inspired open world co-op survival game.

For an Early Access game on Steam from a new developer to hit over 1 million sales in the first week, that's pretty damn incredible considering the competition they are up against. By the second day of release they were already hitting close to 20 thousand players online, by the fourth day it was hitting close to 100 thousand online and they've since hit a peak player count of 219,465 on Thursday, February 11.

Watch video on YouTube.com

We did reach out to the developer to see how the Linux sales went so far but no reply yet. They're only a small team and due to the popularity, they've probably got thousands of emails waiting so it's not really surprising. A lot of it was developed on Linux too, so that's awesome.

They've got a lot planned to come to the game through 2021 and perhaps even beyond considering how popular it is, they should now have plenty of funding to ensure it sees a long life. It's already got a huge amount to see and do though, it's definitely going to stay as one of 2021's best Linux games.

You can buy Valheim with Linux support on Steam . It's an easy recommendation.

Just as a reminder: if you want to hook up with other Linux players, our Discord has a Game Server channel with multiple people hosting already and plenty of regulars from our community joining in on the fun.

Defold , a free game engine with the source code available under a reasonable open license has released a roadmap for 2021 and it's sounding pretty good.

While not actually open source, the licensing terms are still quite friendly and still far better than some other much more closed licensing like with Unity, Unreal and Game Maker but not as open as something like Godot. Defold is progressing on though and their roadmap for 2021 mentions their plan to continue to improve their Linux support.

Under the Platforms heading on their roadmap was this:

Editor on Linux

The Defold editor runs well on Linux but there are a few pain points and problems related to Linux distributions, window managers and graphics drivers. This year we plan to invest time in order to fix at least some of these issues.

Nice to see their developers are not only paying attention to reports but actually want to do better. Their roadmap is also up on GitHub so anyone interested can directly follow various support tickets and feature requests to see how it's doing.

Much more changes are planned too like pulling out their 2D skeletal animation Spine code and the Box 2D / Bullet physics systems and putting them into extensions. Currently both are tightly integrated and limited in how they can push them further, so having them as extensions will allow a lot more flexibility for both game developers and the people working on Defold directly.

They're also working on multiple features to improve performance of games built with Defold like object culling which developers need to do manually right now, improved texture compression, reducing draw calls for sprites and much more.

Sounds like 2021 is going to be big for Defold.

Thunder Lotus appear to have done well with Spiritfarer, their unique management game with a rather cozy atmosphere and a theme based around looking after the dead.

For those who haven't played it yet: you build a boat to explore the world, then befriend and care for spirits before finally releasing them into the afterlife. During the game you build, farm, mine, fish, talk to lots of different people and travel across the seas and eventually say goodbye to spirits you've looked after. In a press release they noted that three separate updates are coming that will "notably expand upon the game’s main story, as well as adding additional characters, locations, and quality of life improvements" and all will be free.

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“We’re tremendously happy with the praise Spiritfarer has received since launch” says Spiritfarer Creative Director Nicolas Guérin. “It’s attracted a very passionate group of fans too, which is great because the team is excited to keep supporting the game with new content this year! I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank our fans for their crucial input as we explored various ideas for new Spiritfarer content. Your feedback definitely helped us zero in on the best path forward for the project!”

Additionally, they shared that Spiritfarer has become the most successful game Thunder Lotus has launched to date. Not without some controversy though. Overall, it is an absolutely lovely game and well worth spending some time with. If you want to see their new roadmap it's up here .

You can buy Spiritfarer on GOG , Steam and Stadia .

Ready to explore a bigger universe? The upcoming X4: Cradle of Humanity expansion along with the big free 4.0 update for all players is now confirmed to launch on March 16.

Taking the X series from Egosoft back to Earth, it will significantly increase the size of the game's universe giving you new sectors to explore along with two Terran factions to X4: Foundations, along with their economy, ships, weapons and stations.

Watch video on YouTube.com

What Cradle of Humanity will include:

• Big expansion of the X4: Foundations universe with new sectors
• Return of Terran factions with economy, ships, weapons and stations
• Thrilling new story missions and adventures to experience
• New game-starts that allow new perspectives on the X4: Foundations story
• Introducing a new terraforming gameplay feature, evolving the endgame
• Visual improvements such as volumetric fog, making the X universe look better than ever

As for the big 4.0 free update, Egosoft continue mentioning it will be the biggest free update in the game's history. You can even try a Beta for it on Steam right now . It does sound pretty expansive with a new coordinated attack system for fleet commanding, volumetric fog graphical feature has been added, a new transaction log to see a good breakdown of your monies, a new message system for important communication with NPCs, new Escorts missions, an option to declare war on a faction and absolutely loads more.

X4: Cradle of Humanity is probably one of the biggest, or perhaps actually the biggest and most in-depth single-player space sim around.

For the full game right now you can buy it on Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

Altered from developer Glitchheart is an upcoming meditative puzzle game mixing hard puzzles and a soothing atmosphere, as you move and morph yourself around small areas to complete each puzzle.

Featuring over 80 puzzles the twist here is that you go through multiple characters / objects to control, each with a unique power of altering their form. The developer says by "understanding their powers, you will gain new intuition for solving interesting puzzles".

Check out the new trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Hilariously, the developer went back and re-did the initial object you control as apparently it looked like a "turd" after the original announcement. Checking out the demo…well, they're not wrong. Hilariously this resulted in a newer trailer (the one above) being done where they've given the starting object a shiny golden makeover that I'm trying not to make jokes about because now it looks like a polished moving and growing poop.

Jokes aside, the idea genuinely does seem to be quite interesting.

You can follow Altered on Steam for release on March 12 and try the demo now.

Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master from developer Goblinz Studio is closing in on the final release, with a fresh big update out now for this mix of dungeon management and turn-based battles.

It actually reminds me a little of the card game BossMonster (which is great by the way). With you in charge of the dungeon and tasked with protecting it from pesky heroes trying to get all your treasure. You need to setup room after room of traps and in Legend of Keepers you're also dealing with your own creatures that you place in defence. Hits the mark quite well and is quite unique.

Watch video on YouTube.com

What's new in the latest release? Highlights include:

New game modes : Ascension and Endless ! Play with a default team or create your own with the team editor! Available for Supporter Pack owners only until full release.
New Archivist section : keep track of the Artefacts available in the game and how to unlock more of them!
New monster : the Futakuchi-onna!
New Artefacts to discover and play with!
New Steam Achievements !

Legend of Keepers has been in Early Access now for close to a year, and the next update will bring it to the full release so if you've been waiting for it to be finished you might want to keep a closer eye on it.

You can pick it up on Humble Store , GOG and Steam .