AAA Gaming Heats Up On Linux With The Releases Of XCOM: Enemy Unknown And Civilization V
By Andrew Powell, published 23/06/2014 in Editorial
In recent times, there's probably no better time to be a Linux gamer. We've already seen some pretty impressive games make their way to our favourite Tux-powered platform and the releases of Sid Meier's Civilization V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown within the last couple of weeks is no exception.
Released on the 11th of June 2014 (for SteamOS and therefore also Linux), Sid Meier's Civilization V is a hugely popular turn-based strategy game, originally released September 2010 for Microsoft Windows. Even more recently (20th of June for Linux/SteamOS), XCOM: Enemy Unknown is also turn-based but a tactical mission-based game, which was originally released October 2012 for Windows and consoles.
In actual fact, both games were developed by Firaxis Games but the Linux ports were handled by Aspyr and Feral Interactive, for Civilization V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown respectively.
As you may well be aware, The Witcher 2 Linux port was also released recently, although it did cause some anger amongst Linux gamers when it was revealed the port was in fact done with a special wrapper, rather than a true native port.
Civilization V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, however, have been confirmed as fully native Linux ports and the Linux users in Steam Community have been reporting very positive feedback regarding the performance and stability of the ports.
Undoubtedly, these are AAA (triple-A) titles with both games having a Metacritic score of around 90 and a generally all-round very positive reception since their original releases.
Both games are also (amongst many others) on sale for at least 50% off on Steam at the time of writing (Steam Summer Sale!), so there's no better time to go and pick up these two great games.