Want to test out another Linux game that uses the Vulkan API? Prepare to lose a lot of your free time with Transport Fever 2 as they've just enabled it.

Urban Games and Good Shepherd Entertainment have been working to try and improve the overall performance of the game, on top of adding in macOS support too. The latest Beta is now available which adds in: Vulkan support with a switch available in the UI for OpenGL and Vulkan, there's a new cable-stayed bridge type, a library fix for Linux and more.

It's still quite early and there's plenty of issues but they're continuing to upgrade the foundation, and their game engine to support further updates to Transport Fever 2. You can find more info on the dedicated Steam Group they setup especially to gather feedback on the testing.

Considering how nicely reviewed it is by users, you can't really go wrong picking it up. Overall on Steam for example it has a Very Positive user rating and the more recent reviews even give it a higher Overwhelmingly Positive rating so it seems Urban Games have done well. See the likes of Vulkan in it is quite exciting too.

Lots of features already included too:

• Free play with countless configuration possibilities
• Three campaigns across three continents with over 20 hours of playing time
• Editors for creating maps and editing saved games
• Three landscape types: moderate, dry, and tropical
• Realistically modelled vehicles from Europe, America and Asia
• A total of over 200 vehicles: trains, buses, streetcars, trucks, aircraft and ships
• Modular train stations, bus and truck stations, airports and harbors
• Realistic transport simulation including one-way streets and light signals
• Editable and paintable terrain with realistic effects
• Intuitive construction tools for building railroads and more
• + plenty more and modding support

You can buy it on Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

Unity 2020.2 is the latest 'TECH' release with all the latest features, that eventually make their way into a more stable LTS release. Following their newer release cycle of two TECH releases per year and then the next LTS upgrade for everyone. There will be a new 2020 LTS release early next year.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Looking over the full release notes , it seems they are continuing to go over their Linux support with a fine-tooth comb as this version of Unity includes quite a lot of fixes and improvements just for Linux.

Here's some highlights for their Linux support:

• Graphics: Added support for Virtual Texturing for Linux Standalone player.
• Linux: Added VTune integration support for Linux.
• Asset Pipeline: Unity no longer needs to reimport all textures, audio, and video when switching between Standalone platforms (for example, Win32 to Win64, or Mac to Linux).
• IL2CPP: Fixed a GC performance regression on Android and Linux.
• Burst: Fixed a compatibility issues between burst and older linux distros.
• Editor: Fixed a class of GTK warnings showing up in the editor log when running the Linux editor. ( 1268468 )
• Editor: Fixed an issue in the Linux editor where mouse input in one window could create undesired visual changes in other windows upon repaint. ( 1131492 )
• Editor: Fixed an issue on Linux where the prefab overrides popup could overflow the available vertical screen space. ( 1119679 )
• Editor: Fixed an issue where the keyboardLayout was not returning correct value on linux. ( 1167021 )
• Editor: Fixed an issue with Linux using FitRectToScreen instead of FitWindowRectToScreen. (1263999)
• Editor: In the linux editor, guiviews no longer gain focus on scroll events (scroll still occurs), which has the effect of preventing the editor from stealing focus on scrolls over guiviews that were previously unfocused. (1270605)
• Linux: Disabled unstable DrawHeader_WhenInvokedManually_FromPrefabOverridesTreeView_InvokesCallback test for case 1179487.
• Linux: Fixed a highlighting issue in the hierarchy window while dragging assets. ( 1251614 )
• Linux: Fixed an Editor crashes if there was not a X11 window desktop environment. (1264934)
• Linux: Fixed an issue where the eyedropper tool in the color picker did not work on Linux. ( 1174814 )
• Linux: Fixed keyboard modifiers from being incorrectly munged while moving between editor windows. ( 1218006 , 1236681 )
• Linux: Fixed performance regression while running in Play mode inside the editor. ( 1271213 )
• Linux: Fixed sporadic errors in the console due to sending invalid drag events. ( 1251591 )
• Linux: Fixed UnitySetup -L option incorrectly showing defaults. ( 1160471 )
• Package Manager: Fixed an issue where the Diagnose button in the critical startup failure dialog would not launch a diagnostics window on Linux.
• WebGL: Added check for Linux to use the correct version of the Brotli compression library. (1241347)

In regards to Linux support for the Unity Editor, it's currently still in a Preview status. From what we learned back in November, they're fully committed to supporting it and getting it into a properly released form with Unity 2021.2 which would be towards the end of 2021.

As one of my absolute favourite games from 2019 , Baba is You really is an exceptional puzzle game that really makes you think outside the box and break some rules.

The thing about Baba is that you're pushing around and combining logic blocks, to change the rules of each level to be able to actually solve it. The idea is just brilliant, it works well and it's quite challenging too. Have you never seen it? Check out the trailer below first to get a good idea of what to expect:

Watch video on YouTube.com

While there is a lot of included content, more is always nice - and they just delivered.

With a Beta now available for a built in level editor, along with the ability to load up from a set of featured levels. You can also input a level code from anyone on the internet to play their creation, which is being shared on a new official Twitter account . It's a fantastic addition and allows you to be seriously creative. Due to the block pushing mechanic, along with lots of logic blocks you can make some wild levels.

Try out my own quick creation with level code "F3MH-4LZS". You can see it in the picture below.

Pictured - the Baba is You level editor running on Linux.

I fear for my free time with this addition. Playing with it is really fun. I can only imagine what people with a far more creative mind than me can come up with.

You can try out the level editor right now on itch.io (free until released fully) or on Steam with the "betatest" opt-in Beta for owners. As for where to actually buy it if you don't own it: Humble Store , itch.io and Steam .

After only two Release Candidates for testing, OBS Studio 26.1 has now officially rolled out with some fun new features for all supported platforms. If you're planning to do any sort of video creation on Linux, OBS Studio is now practically the standard. It's our go-to solution for everything when it comes to video creation (and plain audio recording since it has some easy real-time filters) and being free and open source is a nice big plus.

This release follows shortly after announcing YouTube as a new sponsor , so they have plenty of funding to keep bringing on new and advanced feature releases.

Game pictured - the excellent Children of Morta available from GOG , Humble Store and Steam and the December Humble Choice also has it!

What's new in OBS Studio 26.1, here's the release highlights:

• Added Virtual Camera output on Linux (requires v4l2loopback-dkms) and macOS
• Added the ability to use a separate audio track for the VOD when using Twitch
  • If using Simple output mode, enable "Enable Advanced Encoder Settings", and enable "Twitch VOD Track (Uses Track 2)". Twitch VOD output will then be on audio track 2
  • If using Advanced output mode in the Streaming tab, enable "Twitch VOD Track" and select the track you'd like to use for it
• Added OpenBSD support
• Added the ability to ingest captions coming from Decklink devices via "Decklink Captions" from the Tools menu
• Added hardware decoding options for stinger transitions
• Added an option to duplicate filters in the right-click context menu of filters
• Added ability to copy and paste a single filter between sources
• Added HLS support and ingests for YouTube
• Added a Replay buffer save event to the frontend API

Various bug fixes also made it in like properly warning you of more than one instance running, which can cause some issues (especially with Virtual Camera). There's also some helpful UI tweaks, like showing you the max limitations of various streaming services.

You can grab OBS Studio from the official site .

A brand new Long Term Support release is out now with the Linux Kernel 5.10, the very beating heart of the whole Linux system which brings plenty of new features and hardware support.

With it being a new LTS, it's going to get updates and bug fixes for a much longer time than usual providing a good solid base for at least two years for Linux distributions. Apart from that, here's some of the bigger changes:

• Ext4 fast commit support, for faster metadata performance
• Nintendo Switch controller support for both Joy-Cons and Pro controllers
• Support for the Mayflash Sega Saturn Adaptor
• Sound Blaster AE-7 is now supported
• XFS file system now won't crash and burn in the year 2038
• Raspberry Pi VC4 support pulled in
• Thunderbolt/USB4 supported on Intel Tiger Lake-H
• Working headphones with the ASUS TM420
• Thinkpad P1 Gen 3 and Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 3 get a working Headset Button
• More work done for new upcoming Intel chipsets for Rocket Lake and Alder Lake
• The k10temp temperature sensor driver now supports AMD Zen3 CPUs
• + a whole lot more

For a full rundown check out Kernel Newbies article .

In the announcement , Torvalds mentions about being more strict over the Kernel 5.11 development cycle due to the holidays coming up so ideally they only want what is actually ready to be pulled in. Fair enough at this time of year, there will be far less people around with time to spare for feedback on patches.

Upgrading will depend on your distribution. Ubuntu gets major Kernel upgrades through new releases of the distribution, while others like Arch will gradually pull them in for you to switch.

Hive Time, the sweet beehive building and management sim from Cheeseness hits the one year mark, celebrates with a new upgrade and a fresh little trailer. Disclosure : the developer has contributed to GOL in the past.

It might not be scientifically accurate but it sure is charming. We've seen all sorts of building and management sims from people to ants and bees too definitely need their time in the spotlight. One of the most important creatures to keep our environment alive, you gotta love the bees.

After being out for a whole year now, Cheeseness has upgraded the game with community features like chat integration for livestreams. Players watching can vote on various game features, and vote on gifts to help or hinder players. Some active chat participants may even get select to be a special bee - how lovely. For everyone else there's also new content like events, new hats, a bunch of new effects, new game options to tweak how you play for your own fun, optimisations and a lot more.

Watch video on YouTube.com

If you missed it, Cheese also did something of a deep dive into how the release went and their thoughts on releasing a pay what you want game. See a brief round-up of some points included in our previous article .

You can buy Hive Time as a Pay What You Want game from itch.io .

Uncharted Depths is the name of the latest upgrade to Barotrauma, a sci-fi exploration sim that puts you and friends (or random people / AI) inside a submarine in the depths of Jupiter's moon Europa.

What I love to call an underwater suffering sim, as it's a pretty good description of what to expect from it. Inspired by FTL, RimWorld, Space Station 13 and others it's a sci-fi game full of silly ragdoll characters and plenty of horrifying sea creatures that want to eat you and your submarine. It's like a much darker and more in-depth version of We Need To Go Deeper.

The Uncharted Depths is out now adding in a huge overhaul to the environment with remade textures, branching level paths, more varied levels, new small explorable caves, destructible floating ice chunks, new environmental hazards like falling Ice Spires and more. That alone sounds awesome but there's a whole lot more including new missions, a big upgrade to the AI bot system to help you when you're alone, expanded modding support, tons of bug fixes and more.

Check out their new trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

While it's quite a difficult game to get going, it's one full of laughs and a few jump scares here and there when you're not expecting a monster to come visit your submarine. Between trying not to crash, dealing with alien sea creatures and putting out all those fires - it's can be a lot of fun with the right people.

Barotrauma is available to buy on Humble Store or Steam .

Mimimi Games are giving Desperados III a "proper goodbye" with the final free update, and it's quite an exciting one for an already amazing game.

Just released is the "Bounty Mode Update" which allows you to change how you play the game. You will be able to play with all character across almost every major mission, so this means you can make it easier or spice it up and make it perhaps more interestingly difficult for yourself. Mimmi said "You want to crash the Mayor's wedding in "Mission 4: Until Death Do Us Part" with all characters and create some fun voodoo chaos with Isabelle, while the Doc snipes his way through the wedding preparations. Well, here you go!".

There's also now a simple form of a level editor, which they call "Level Editing Cheats" that allows you to go into any mission and activate a new mode where you can then spawn all sorts of things in. Save it and then share it. Not quite a full level editor but close and could allow for some interesting creations with the existing levels.

Check out the trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Additionally, the team also confirmed in a blog post that they're moving on from THQ Nordic to self-publish their next game, codenamed "Süßkartoffel" and yes it's going to be their third real-time tactics game. I am very happy about this, since it's not a common genre and Mimi seem to know very well what they're doing with it. This new title has been partly funded by the German government through the official games industry grant.

Pretty amazing to see how far they've come, considering they almost went bankrupt while developing Shadow Tactics.

You can buy Desperados III from Humble Store and Steam .

Two bits of major news to cover for the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer, with some exciting major changes coming in with updates. Don't know what Steam Play Proton is? Go take a look at our dedicated page .

Firstly, if you have an AMD GPU and you don't mind grabbing the latest development code for the Mesa graphics drivers - Cyberpunk 2077 should actually work on Linux with the new Proton 5.13-4 release. Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned that CD PROJEKT RED allowed them some early testing time to get the work done for both vkd3d (the Direct3D 12 to Vulkan layer) and radv (the AMD Mesa Vulkan driver). As an NVIDIA GPU owner, this makes me quite jealous as it seems my only other current choice on Linux is Stadia or GeForce NOW (unofficially - until later in 2021 ).

Additionally, there's now also a new Proton Experimental branch available which has the start of major architectural changes to Wine. This brings with it a plan to reduce CPU overhead and improve performance in scenarios related to input and windowing. Seems Proton Experimental is an additional version of Proton, so you would install it along side the other versions currently available for this compatibility tool.

You can find the Proton changelog here .