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
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
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:
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