Play as Jackie Estacado and weild the powerful "creeping dark" tendrils to slay your enemies, rip them apart and use their hearts for health. Physics plays a big part in The Darkness 2 as you can use your tendrils to pick up heavy object and throw them at enemies, use them as a shield, pick up health or weapons at a distance and even throw enemies at eachother. With the combination of guns and supernatural powers, you can slay enemies in an infinite number of ways.



Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing The Darkness 2 in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Steam version of The Darkness 2. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

Try SteamPlay before using this guide as Valve now uses a fork of Wine called Proton and should run most Windows games.
To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 18.3 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.12
Lutris Wine: darkness2-2.6-i686

Wine Installation

Go to: https://lutris.net/files/runners/
Download wine-darkness2-1.9.12-i686.tar.gz
Save to your Desktop

Open wine-darkness2-1.9.12-i686.tar.gz with your archive manager
Select "darkness2-2.6.i686"
Click Extract


Navigate to: /home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wine/linux-x86
Click Extract


Click Quit


darkness2-1.9.12-i686 is installed and you can close this window

Downloading Steam

Go To: http://www.steampowered.com
Click Install Steam


Do not click "Install Steam Now"
It will automatically install Linux Steam
Select Windows Steam instead
click "Windows" under the green button


Navigate to your desktop
Click Save


PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install


Click "install a non-listed program"


Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next


Name your virtual drive: darkness2
No spaces
Click Next


Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next


Select Wine darkness2-2.6-i686
Click Next


Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next


Configure Wine

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply


Graphics Tab
Check: Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows
Click Ok


PlayOnLinux Packages (Libraries, Components, DLL's)

Check the following libraries:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_Physx
• POL_Install_tahoma
• POL_Install_vcrun2008

Click Next


Note: All packages will automatically download and install

Installing Steam

Click Browse

Navigate to your desktop
Select: SteamSetup.exe
Click Open


Click Next

Click Next

Check: I accept the license...
Click Next

Click Next

Click Next

Click Install

Click Finish

Updating Steam

Click the "X" to close Steam login


PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select Steam.exe
Click Next


Name your shortcut: The Darkness 2
Click Next


Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next


PlayOnLinux Configure

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure


General Tab
Wine Version: darkness2-2.6-i686
Arguments: -no-dwrite -no-cef-sandbox
This fixes any missing font problems and the Store problem (Windows needs to be set as Windows XP)


Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of wine

Display Tab
Video Memory Size: Select the size of Memory your video card/chip uses


Close Configure

Launching Steam

Select The Darkness 2
Click Run


Note: Click debug to see errors and bugs

Click "Login to existing account"


Login


Find "The Darkness 2" in your Library
Click Install


Uncheck "Create desktop shortcut"
Uncheck "Create start menu shortcut"
Click Next


Click "I agree"


Click Finish


Wait for The Darkness 2 to download
Click Play


Optimization

Press Enter


Click Options


Click Display



Conclusion:
In my first tests I was using Wine staging and the game ran fine but there were a lot of black textures as reported in AppDB as well. After some investigation I found there is a patch that fixes it, but PlayOnLinux Developers no longer provide patched versions of Wine. So I found that Lutris provided a specific Darkness 2 version of Wine that worked perfectly. Now everything looks perfect, runs great on my GeForce GTX 1060.

Gameplay Video:



Screenshots: