action games

Valheim has sold millions of copies with millions of players exploring the massive map, creating Viking cities, slaying monsters, collecting loot and crafting gear. But where did it all start? The free-to-play beta of course!


Sadly I've had a hard time tracking down a download for Valheim Linux beta. I've kept it from years ago and it still runs pretty well and is still a lot of LAN co-op fun! If you still don't want to spend money on Valheim and want to play with limited features, give it a go, but have fun finding an installer.

I was able to host a listenserver and my daughters both joined on Mint PCs
Every once in a while there is a slight performance stutter. Part of it is the automatic save, but the other part may just be optimization issues. Either way, a lot of fun!

Specs:
Mint 21.164-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 530

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Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was an amazing action game following the epic adventures of Talion. In Shadow of War its basically the same game but with some new skills and ability to recruit captains into your own army and take over strongholds. Play again as Talion and utilize the wraith skills of Elven Lord Celebrimbor. Slay thousands of orks, ride caragors and encounter drakes. Even the nemesis system still exists when you are executed by a captains, warchiefs or overlords. Discover their weaknesses by interrogating worms and exploit them by slaying with fire, stealth-kill, poison, creatures and even cause them to run in fear!

When you recruit a captain into your own army, later they can be upgraded and moved from stronghold to other strongholds. The combinations are limitless. Even the combinations of wraith skills are limitless.


Specs:
Mint 21 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia...

Helldivers is a 3rd person twin-stick action shooter with upgrades, co-op and medium sized maps with missions. One interesting element is the online players help each other overcome enemy solar systems by completing objectives on each planet. If you play co-op with 3 friends and complete all the planets in the solar system, then online players no longer get to play these maps until all of them are complete. If your team dies and you quit the game, other players can try the objectives themselves. So the war continues as long as players are online beating maps.


Helldivers is made by the same developer who brought us Magicka and Magicka 2. Unfortunately there is no native Linux port so we have to play with Proton. As expected it runs beautifully on 3 of my computers as I've been playing co-op with my daughters. I was unable to grab screenshots due to the game engine capturing the mouse so operating system keyboard shortcuts didn't work. At...

Magica is a unique and original sandbox action game with 100s of spell combinations in a co-operative wizard of magic and comedy. There is no other game like Magicka! This is no typical dual-stick or RPG this is magic chaos at its best!


Use QWER & ASDF keys to weild water, heal, sheild, ice, shock, death, earth and of course... Fire!
But the real trick is to combine these elements by loading up to 5 slots of available spell combinations. The results are fantastic and epic! Not to mention each of the enemies also have strenghts and weaknesses related to these elements. You will fight other wizards, bosses and engage in a quirky story with clever dialog.

About 10 years ago I tested and posted a exausting step-by-step guide on how to run Magicka in PlayOnLinux with Wine
https://www.gamersonlinux.com/forum/threads/magicka-guide.354/

Today, it runs OUT-OF-THE-BOX with Proton! Its unbelievable, but don't take my word for it, try...

Rage 2 is a second installment of the Rage franchise boasting epic firefights, car battles, bosses, and apacalyptic views!


There is no shortage of loot and action here... everything a FPS action gamer wants! If you have played the first Rage, then Rage 2 is an absolute upgrade! The open world is HUGE... many roads, biomes, elevations and loctions to slay bandits, mutants and soldiers.

In many ways I think Rage 2 is what ID Software wanted for the first game. Not sure if budgets were tight or the fact Bethesda was purchasing the developer, but Rage 2 is by all means EPIC!

Luckily I was able to pick it up for free on Epic store. I waited a few months as I was testing other games and had no idea how amazing this game was. Finally gave it a chance and found that it was buggy with a lot of crashing in Proton. I'm using Heroic Launcher which handles the download and Proton/Wine version perfectly. There are even other settings like...

Genesis Alpha One is a space management first person shooter adventure where you extract resources and craft to improve your ship and crew. Use the retractor beam or an away mission to gather all kinds of interstellar resources and then craft new items to power your ship and create new cloned crewmembers.
Keep a close eye on your ship as alien stowaways creep on board and start tearing it apart and infecting your crew.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/genesis_alpha_one_deluxe_edition


I was able to pick up Genesis Alpha One for free on GOG and finally gave it chance in PlayOnLinux. I never had any bugs or crashes and it ran beautifully with all the settings on high. If you love micromanaging your ship and gathering/crafting items, this is your space game! It is nice to have some action as well! The only missing piece is the intro videos which require Media Foundation, but no loss to the game play or training at all.

Specs:
Mint 20.3...

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider is the newest installment of the Tomb Raider series with all the eye-candy, puzzles and action you expect! In fact there are some newer tools and abilities added to the skill tree to help you hunt, find resources, kill enemies, stealthilize and solve puzzles. All the crafting needs for Laura are here as well. Go find the treasure, save the natives and eliminate Trinity! Can't be that hard right?


I was able to pick up "Shadow" during a free event at Epic Games. I'm using Heroic Launcher and Proton but there have been some frustrations. After trying several Proton versions and disabling DirectX 12 there are some performance issues and graphical glitches.

With DirectX 12 enabled the game seems to run fine, but you may see strange patterns and colors appearing the game textures like this...

pretty glitter on his jacket... he he


Also, there is some kind of memory leak and you will see...

Arkham Asylum is under control by the Joker and his crew, take out his minions as the Dark Knight with dive skills, stealth, combos and numerous skills. Solve detective work with exploration Arkham Asylum to find out what Joker is really up to.


I picked up this game for free on Epic Games and gave it a try in Heroic Launcher. I never had any issues with performance or bugs. This is an older game so it still runs on DirectX 9c and it shows... but still a fun title and great to see that Linux can handle it with Proton!

Specs:
Mint 20.3 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 515
Proton Experimental 7.0-100

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Re-live the epic Ghostbusters movies as a new recruit into the ghost-slaying team! Catch ghosts with Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston in classic memorable locations in New York! Just like in the movies you have to hunt down Slimer in a hotel, fight the State Puff Marshmallow boss and explore the city with classic and new monsters! It doesn't get any better than this!


I originally tested Ghostbusters years ago as I had the retail DVD ROM version and it ran pretty well. I was happy to see Epic Games release a free Remastered version and decided to give it a try in Heroic Launcher! I was not disappointed.

Specs:
Mint 20.3 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 515 Proton
Experimental 7.0-100
Heroic Launcher

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Drox Operative is a top-down space shooter with exploration, customization, upgrades, RPG elements, clan relations & a lot of enemies! Explore populated solar systems and complete missions for different alien clans. But be ware, too many favors for one sect will cause the others to go to war with you!

http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative-2/Overview.html


This action space series provides native Linux ports and full LAN co-operative capabilities! Conqueor the solar systems with your friends and gather loot to trade with planets! The action is unending and each game you start is completely procedurally generated.

Specs:
Mint 20.3 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 515

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SupraLand is a first person adventure, action, puzzle game with some stunning graphics and features.

Play as the hero of the back yard sandbox... help the red people to find out why the water stopped and explore huge detailed world made of sandbox toys. There are many hidden areas, powerups, coins and enemies. Spare no expense!


I picked up the game for free on Epic Store and was able to play perfectly with Heroic Launcher in Linux. Never experienced a crash or stutter. This game runs smoothly and its a lot of fun. I found myself exploring and finding all kinds of secrets. My GeForce GTX 1650 runs it just fine!

Specs:
Mint 20.3 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 515
Heroic Launcher
Proton Eperimental (version 7)

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What begins as a corporate espionage turns out to be a paranormal extravaganza! Federal Bureau of Control is a secret government agency experimenting in secret weapons, but something happens and now they are in complete lock down. Play as Jesse Faden and investigate what happened while also discovering your new abilities....


I was able to pick up Control for free on Epic Games. Then I was able to download and play the game in Heroic games launcher without any issues. I even recently picked up a new video card and Control runs pretty well with most settings on high. The video doesn't display the full performance I get in Mint on my GeForce GTX 1650. I've had a few frame rate stutters when indoor (of all places) but the large areas seem to run great. Physics are amazing and do not seem to cause any lag as you destroy everything in sight.

Specs:
Mint 20.2 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1650
Nvidia 470
Proton 7.0

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I never played the original Bloodborn on the Playstation, but this game reminds me of Dark Souls soooo much! The movement, the backgrounds and even the sound effects are just like Dark Souls!


Download Bloodborn PSX for free and customize the graphics to simulate a 1990's CRT television and enjoy the old school hack-n-slash!

https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

I was unable to play this game on stable versions of Wine because of dependencies needed for Unreal Engine.
But I quickly found that staging versions are able to run it almost perfectly! There are some staticy sound artifacts which I tried to fix by installing xact and Direct X June 2010, but it didn't help. So I just dealt with it...

Specs:
Mint 20.2 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1060
Nvidia 470
Wine: 6.17-Staging
DXVK 1.9.2

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Assassin's Creed Unity takes place in France during the French Revolution. Make your way through the streets alone or with 3 friends and free the lower class from oppression by assassinating key figures in power. Purchase costumes, gear, skills and even co-op boosts to complete the single-player campaign or co-op missions.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/289650/Assassins_Creed_Unity/


Unity runs really well in Linux Mint but there are times when it might randomly crash. Sometimes we had a hard time connecting a co-op session because one computer appeared offline for no apparent reason. Other than that, I was able to crank up the graphics to Very High and still enjoy a decent frame rate. Expect to see "Processing Vulkan Shaders" from time to time.

I was only able to play Unity in E-Proton7-9 (Glorious EggRoll) as other versions would crash UPlay/UConnect

Specs:
Mint 20.2 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1060 & GTX 950
Nvidia 470
E-Proton7-9...

PREY is an absolute "Must Play" if you are a first person shooter gamer! Imagine System Shock 2 on steroids with amazing graphics, clever morphing aliens, psionic abilities, loot, crafting, survival, sneaking and more. Of course all happening on a space station! Doesn't get any better than this!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/

I remember testing PREY crashing a few years ago: reddit
But now it runs beautifully! I was even able to get a decent frame rate while recording and playing! I'm even using the same hardware, but newer Nvidia drivers, Proton, Vulkan and Mint version.

Specs:
Mint 20.2 64-bit
Nvidia 470
Proton 6.3-8

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Rise Of The Tomb Raider is another epic chapter in the life of Laura Croft. She is searching for the Lost City of Kitezh by following the relics and stories of religious prophet. But a new enemy has risen to beat her to the prize: Trinity

Survive in the frozen mountains climbing death defying cliffs, hunt animals with your bow, loot to craft new upgrades and take out mercenaries with a new throw-able weapon crafting system.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/rise-of-the-tomb-raider


I was able to install Heroic Launcher and run Rise Of The Tomb Raider with very little issues. At first I had some logging in problems, but waited a day and I logged in just fine. Performance is hit-n-miss with Tomb Raider probably because of Proton/Vulkan Shaders. Any time I initially load a save game it takes about a minute to render the entire map so it will stutter and freeze... but when its done the game runs perfectly with nice frame...

Just Cause 2 is an explosive open world action game with sandbox vehicular combat and grappling hook fun you can ever have! Hop in any car, truck, helicopter, mortorcycle or plane... and cruise through highways, cities, mountains, oceans to your hearts desire. Oh, and there are all kinds of soldiers and police trying to take you out! Use the grappling hook and parachute on any vehicle to hover above them or grapple two people together with a moving car and see their bodies fly around. The only limitation is your imagination... and maybe ammo too.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/8190/Just_Cause_2/


Just Cause 2 has been one of those problematic games in Wine for years. I would re-test and re-test each year to see if the newest versions of Wine or Proton has finally made it playable. At best it would play but have all kinds of performance issues and graphical glitches. Today, Glorious Eggroll has finally made it playable with...

LET IT DIE is a free to play 3rd person action survival game with a tournament style game-play. Select a male or female clone and climb the tower by slaying robots, clones and looting their corpse for gear. Eat and store frogs, mushrooms and other stuff to power up or poison yourself. This is a single-player game but almost seems like a multi-player game because you will fight against your previous characters that died.

Apparently this is a survival game but I didn't see very many survival needs... no hunger, water, sleep, or crafting. There is weapon crafting in the lobby and you can customize your characters, but it seems when you die the next start is with a brand new clone with nothing but underwear. Also, most of the levels are flat, so it doesn't really feel like you are climbing a tower until you get to the ladder at the end.

Its pretty fun slaying previous characters and finding new weapons and gear! There is definitely a "souls" style of game-play and its much...

LEGO has an ongoing franchise in re-creating movies as action puzzle games. LEGO The Hobbit follows the story of Bilbo Baggins with humor, boss fights, clever puzzles, LEGO crafting and lots of hack-n-slash action.
Even play through the store co-op with a friend! Graphically this game is absolutely beautiful! I was able to play in HD 1080 and never a performance for frame rate drop.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/285160/LEGO_The_Hobbit/


Proton handles LEGO The Hobbit without any issues. I am able to play right out-of-the-box with keyboard/mouse and my Xbox controller. There were only minor issues in the game that Windows gamers experience as well. Other than that, it is fun, clever and frustrating game like all the LEGO series.

Specs:
Mint 20.2 64-bit
GeForce GTX 1060
Nvidia 470
Proton 6.3-8




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Strange Brigade is a 3rd person action game that places you in a 1930's Indiana Jones in the middle of Egypt. Play through extremely detailed ancient levels of the dead, enjoy fighting zombies, mummies, huge scorpions, bosses and much more. Each level is filled with puzzles, monster slaying and weapon upgrades. The best part... play with 3 of your friends in online co-op.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/312670/Strange_Brigade/


I knew Strange Brigade existed but didn't give it a second thought because of the price. Then one day during a Steam sale I stumbled across it for $5.00 and couldn't miss this chance. Bought two copies and have been playing co-op with my daughter. Proton handles it perfectly on my GeForce GTX 1060, but my daughters machine had some random crashes with her GeForce GTX 950. For me the game runs really smooth but there is also this strange audio syncing where I can hear the sound, voices and music from...