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Excellent game! Brings back some good memories from the original XCOM: UFO Defense. Game works splendidly.
It took some work to get it working but once it was finally working it runs fine on linux.
gamemoderun %command%
I played on an external monitor. It is possible that if you are playing in Handheld the text could be small.
The game will start with mouse only. You have to go into the settings using the mouse, or setting up the trackpad like a mouse, to turn on the input for a controller. Once the input is changed, the game will use the 360 controller layout from there on.
In some other the other proton versions, the game would crash while loading a save.
The game seems to be broken on windows causing it to partly be broken in proton. While using some of the other Proton Version the game would either fail to launch or crash while loading. Using the GE proton version I did, it seemed to be working.
It took some time to get the game working. The game appears to be broken on windows as well which is the cause of the problems in linux. I had to verified my game cache mutiple times and try different version of proton before it would work. Still a fun game but it no longer works out of the box thanks to 2K breaking it.
Worked around the issue using GOG executables (preventing DRM related issues) and complex launch parameters to skip the launcher, but the game frequently crashes - especially when loading saves. Do not recommend.
If you have Enemy Within DLC and the game launcher won't start you have to edit the /steamapps/common/XCom-Enemy-Unknown/xew/engine/config/baseengine.ini, and change the line 'AllowD3D11=False' to '=True'. After this the launcher will start as usual.
I've tried numerous compatability changes (Proton 7.0-6, Proton Experimental, GE (latest and 7.0-6) and nothing will launch the game. It gets stuck on "updating executable."
This seems to be caused by a relatively recent update as I can't find more information around the web. Only this sole thread over here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1594796-xcom-enemy-unknown-major-issue-after-last-update/
There was even a moment that it made it past updating executable, but then immediately quit and went back to the main steam menu.
Works with a single change to launch options, but I suspect it's mainly my computer's fault.
PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %COMMAND%
The game works natively, however the Long War Rebalance mod works better when running through proton. I noticed no problems. My game didn't run without the launch flag, but that goes for most of my games running through proton. Unless you're modding your game, just stick to native.
SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11 %command%
First I ran the launch option -FROMLAUNCHER -LANGUAGE=INT
The XComGame.exe was redownloaded with this option.
Then I removed the launch options and added the SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11 %command%
The launcher is giving 2 options: XCom Enemy Within or XCom Enemy Unknown
Enemy Unknown doesn't start for me, so I launch the game with Enemy Within.
Game crashed on me once until now
Without the launch options the game keeps saying Updating Executable and nothing further is happening
I bought it for 2 bucks on Steam. Would be great, if the game worked out of the box. But the last update was more than 10 years ago, so...
gamemoderun %command%
Saved games from the past have been totally wiped. Sometimes a save was not loadable or would crash upon loading and require reloading multiple times.
Game sometimes crashes, requiring a restart and reload of a save (see save problems).
MangoHud does not work well with this title, likely due to the launcher that spawns beforehand.
If you use that version of GE-Proton it should work without any problem, to use the steam deck controls, with an external mouse and within the game go to options - interface and change the input device to xbox 360 controller and everything should work without any problems.
Use the touch for select the xcom version
With an external mouse into the game go to options - interface and change the input device to xbox 360 controller and everything should work without any problems.
Latest proton build no good. Switch to Proton 7.0-6
Switching to Proton 7.0-6 is absolutley essential, otherwise the game will crash upon loading save games.
Load game crashes will persist with Enemy Within. Switch to Proton 7.0-6 to fix the issue.
Use Proton 7.06 due to instability loading save games.
Works perfectly
Enemy Within works, but takes some tweaking. Had to use GE proton7 & launch in desktop mode to enable gamepad input
Linux verion doesnt recognize enemy within dlc. Had to use proton 7 and launch in desktop mode to be able to interact with EW's main menu
Enemy within defaults to touch control but doesn't respond to touch input in game mode. Had to launch in desktop mode, use touch to navigate to the interface option & switch it to controller to make the game responsive. It's been playing fine in game mode since
Ran fine with Long War mod installed.
I actually played this game on integrated graphics and turbo-low settings back before I installed my dGPU, achieving ~90fps max.
Surprised it played so well until the last 3 missions where things got heavy and bogged down briefly (less than a few seconds at a time).
Increased Swapfile to 8 Gigs
Mission cutscene playback suffered lag yet Story cutscenes played without issue. Performance bogged down in the much latter (largers maps) end games for brief periods otherwise played fine.
Once in a while the game would hang where certain options would become unresponsive during a turn and would be unable to end the turn.
Perfectly playable on low end machines for the most part with albeit brief performance issues at the larger end missions.
Running natively, the game does not recognize that I own Enemy Within (I do), rendering me unable to play it.
I am also running Long War. You can install Long War with Proton by downloading the Windows installer from Nexus, add it to your Steam library and run it using Proton (7.0-6 worked for me). Install as normally from there.
Cannot access saves made along missions unless Proton reverted to 7.0.6
Crashes in middle of the missions unles Proton reverted to 7.0.6
Great OTB.
2 crashes 30 hours.
At least for me, it required Proton downgrade. YMMV
Choose "Enemy Within" on startup screen. In the main menu controller is unresponsive. Switching to mouse & keyboard, the pointer won´t register clicks. Same issue in desktop mode with connected mouse and keyboard. I wasn´t able to find solution.
mangohud %command%
Loading a savegame crashes the game.
TL;DR works with 7.2-GE-3-test-3 (maybe even later ones, but I didn't try further)
Long story: The native version is not recognizing the expansion (Enemy Within). Therefore I used the Proton layer. It started right away with GE8-14, but loading savegames would crash the game. I disabled "VSync" and "Framerate smoothing" and it worked. The next day though, for reasons, I could only load savegames to the base management view. Starting a mission or loading a mission savegame would crash the game. I tried the Proton Experimental, the GE8-14, the GE8-11 and almost gave up on it. I had a historic version of GE-7.2-3-test-3 and tried it for fun. That one works surprisingly - yay! It's running the second day now and seems stable.
Won't Launch
I can get to the DLC selection menu to choose between Enemy Unkown and the original game. When I click on either the game "launches" but gets stuck in an infinite loop immidiately before the game screen appears.
Tried prior versions or proton, native version, PROTON_USE_WINED3D11=1 %command%, and so on, nothing worked.
Flawless on Linux Mint w default Steam proton or Experimental BUT KB&M only. Controller does not work at all
XBox Series controller (via USB cable) does not work at all in this game. KB&M only.
(Doesn't work with Xbox Series controller plugged in)
Runs pretty much perfectly out of the box
Game assumes US layout (e.g. y and z are swapped from German layout)
Significant slowdown with many units on screen, especially on a sniper kill for some reason
LWR mod: Game crashes when trying to use some abilities without valid targets. Turning on autosaves is recommended. (Update from previous review: unlikely to be fixed)
Runs surprisingly well, even with the Long War (Rebalance) mod.
Game assumes US layout (playing with german layout in system settings)
Crashes when attempting to use abilities without valid targets, but that's an issue with the mod and likely to be fixed soon
Sometimes it has minor bugs but otherwise it´s pretty alright.
The camera gets stuck when using the keyboard at the same time as the controller is connected.
Sometimes the main menu becomes unresponsive and the character animations play in a loop.
Can't play the expansion without crashes
Have to map controller to mouse in order to enter settings and switch game's input mode to gamepad
Crashes loading saves from in-game Also crashed at startup loading an autosave that it made at the start of a mission that it crashed when starting...
Crashes every hour or so, plus when loading saves when already playing
After switching to Steam Linux Runtime, it doesn't recognize that I own Enemy Within, even after completely uninstalling+reinstalling the game
Game is native on linux & works without problem.
No tinkering. Works out of the box.
Battery draw was quite high at 60 fps, limited to 30
Steam reported a cloud save conflict, might be related with having run the Windows version first
Steam installed the Windows version by default. I experienced graphical glitches with this version (e.g. a mess of colored pixels instead of smoke). I switched to native and it triggered a redownload, but the game stopped booting, I had to reinstall. It finally worked with no other tinkering
The game works perfectly with right tinkering. I suggest these option rather than the linux version because of an added launcher.
40Hz screen refresh for more battery life
Text rendered in 3d like missions details during loading screen are unreadable for while until the camera zooms in enough.
Without tinkering the game shows major graphical artifacts.
Great game, not a single problem on Pop!_OS.
nativ version doesnt work at all. windows version with default proton (7.0.5) works nice
Needed to temporarily map mouse & left-mouse-click so that I could use the game options menu to turn on "XBox360 Controller mode" (until then only mouse works)
limited to 30 fps in steam UI for a very low battery draw
Minor draw artifacts sometimes in cutscene movies, otherwise perfect.
Needed to temporarily map mouse & left-mouse-click so that I could use the game options menu to turn on "XBox360 Controller mode" (until then only mouse works)
I had it uninstalled since it had issues when I played it some months ago. I guess the reinstall or switching to GE Proton or an update within the uninstalled interim coulda fixed it.
Assuming that game starts by default with a gamepad instead of mouse and keyboard or the user is lucky to visit options at the start.
I set screen refresh rate to 40 Hz. There isn't much of a benefit in higher refresh rate in this game.
Some particles in XCOM base defence section (that was added in Enemy Within) were rendering as black faces. They were very hard to notice though and would likely be missed by the first time gamer.
The game doesn't automatically swap to the controller and it isn't very obvious that a user has to go to options to set controller to be able to play with gamepad layout. This might be a non-issue for the user that has never started the game, though, as it's possible that it was something that got carried over with my cloud saves from PC and the game's fresh start sets the game to gamepad, but it is a problem nevertheless.
