I’m looking for discussion and suggestions about the best way to play games from GOG on linux.
My current method is that I’ve got GOG Galaxy installed with bottles, and then I use GOG Galaxy to install and launch the Windows games. That’s working alright so far. One downside is that won’t install Iinux versions like that, so for games that have a native linux version I have to decide if I want to install it separately, or just run the windows version with the others. So that isn’t perfect. Another minor thing I don’t like is that since I’m installing games via GOG Galaxy via Bottles via Flatpak… I end up having very little idea of where stuff is being saved. It’s difficult to find save game files for example; and if there is some junk installed or left over from something, there’s very little chance that I’m going to notice and delete it. It just feels very opaque. (I guess that’s mostly just about my personal lack of knowledge though.)
Anyway, I’m mostly just wondering how others are choosing to handle their games from GOG.
The Heroic Games Launcher is (IMHO) by far the best interface to gog you can have on linux.
You can find it on the AUR if you use arch, which makes it pretty straightforward to install.
The next version will integrate with the Galaxy API using the comet project, which should make it even better.
The only problem I had with it is that, once upon a time, there was a bug with downloading some games (Cyberpunk 2077, in my case) and I had to compile the git version of Gog-dl and target that in the settings… but the fact I could even do that is great by itself.
Heroic does seem to have jumped in popularity recently. I’d never heard of it when I first started installing games on Linux.)
Does the comet support mean that it can also do Galaxy cloud-saves and achievements? I wouldn’t say those things are super important to me, but it would make switching between launches easier - since I wouldn’t have to stuff around trying to move save files to the right place after switching.
I think comet is more about multiplayer in games that use the Galaxy API than achievements
The gog cloud save support I think was already in the Heroic Game Launcher for about a couple of years, I think I have my Cyberpunk 2077 saves on there, but honestly I’m not sure
The cloud save support is a beta feature. When I tried it with Alone in the Dark earlier this year, it didn’t work.
Comet support achievements and are already usable with Heroic if you launch it yourself.
Heroic is good, cloud saves are on Beta at the moment, on some (a lot) GOG games cloud saves aren’t present. On the other hand some games do have the option. Heroic does allow you to configure a runner per game basis which is helpful in some situations.
If you do play the game on Heroic and it doesnt have cloud save, when/if you copy paste all the files or import it (copy/paste) to something that can run their client like Lutris/Bottles with galaxy all the achievements and saves are transferred and can be saved in the cloud. You do have to run the game at least once after transferring all those files to the client.
Cloud saves are already supported by Heroic ; Comet can already be used if you launch it yourself but will be integrated in the package in the future. Comet support online features and achievements. Heroic + Comet = Gog Galaxy
That’s good to know about Comet being usable already. Recently got back into No Man’s Sky and want to try out some online stuff.
Not sure about that popularity comment, it’s also available on Windows and I know of many people who have been using it for years instead of the crappy Epic Store. And yes, it works great for GOG.