How to play Grim Dawn on Linux
Grim Dawn is an action RPG action game that thematically echos that of Victorian England. The game follows the player’s character as they quest and adventure through the war-torn world of Cairn, trying to make the best of life after the war.
Grim Dawn was developed and published by Crate Entertainment to critical acclaim in 2016. Upon release, the game was made available to Windows 10 users on Steam, and no Linux port has ever been announced. However, the game works well on Linux thanks to Steam Play! In this guide, we’ll show you how to get it working.
Play Grim Dawn on Linux
Are you looking to Play Grim Dawn on your Linux PC? You’re in luck! The game has a Platinum rating and will run great! To start the installation, follow the step-by-step instructions below.
Step 1: Grim Dawn works flawlessly on Linux thanks to Proton and Steam Play, but to get the game working with these technologies on Linux, you’ll need to install the latest release of Steam for Linux. To install Steam on Linux, open up a terminal window on the desktop by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T and enter the commands below.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu users have it easy when it comes to installing Steam. There’s no need to download anything; the app is in Ubuntu’s primary software sources. To install it, use the following Apt command.
sudo apt install steam
Debian
Debian Linux does have Steam in their software repositories, but it’s held in the “non-free” repos, which can be annoying to enable. A much better way to get Steam working on Debian is just to install it from a Deb package.
To get the latest Steam for Debian, start by using the wget command to download the app to your system.
wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steam.deb
Once the DEB package is downloaded to your computer, installation is ready to begin. Use the dpkg command to get the latest Steam set up.
sudo dpkg -i steam.deb
Arch Linux
If you need to get Steam working on Arch Linux, you’ll be happy to know that it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. Just enter the pacman command below, and it’s ready to use!
sudo pacman -S steam
Fedora/OpenSUSE
If you’re a Fedora or OpenSUSE user, it’s best to get the Flatpak release of Steam. While both of these OSes have native releases of Steam, they aren’t as easy to set up. Follow the Flatpak instructions below to get it working.
Flatpak
The Flatpak release of Steam works very well on a wide variety of Linux operating systems due to the magic of Flatpak. It’s also pretty convenient because, without the Flatpak release of Steam, many distros might not be able to play Steam games.
To get the Flatpak release of Steam working on your computer, start by following our guide on how to set up the Flatpak runtime. Then, when the runtime is set up, use the following flatpak remote-add command to add the Flathub app store to Flatpak.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Now that the Flathub app store is set up on your Linux PC, the installation of Steam for Flatpak can begin. Using the flatpak install command, get the app working.
flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam
Step 2: Look for the “Steam” menu at the top of the app, and click on it. Upon clicking the “Steam” menu button, look for the “Settings” option, and click on it.
Inside of “Settings,” look for the “Steam Play” option, and click on it with the mouse to access the Steam Play settings. Then, check the boxes with “Enable Steam Play for supported titles” and “Enable Steam Play for all other titles.” Selecting these boxes will enable Steam Play on your Linux PC and allow you to play Grim Dawn.
Step 3: Find the “STORE” button, and click on it to go to the Steam Storefront. Once on the Storefront, find the search box and enter “Grim Dawn.” Press Enter to search.
In the search results, locate “Grim Dawn” and click on it to go to the Grim Dawn store page. On the store page, click “Add to cart” to purchase the game.
Step 4: Click on the “LIBRARY” button to go to your Steam Library. Then, look for “Grim Dawn” in your collection, right-click on the game, and select “Properties.”
In the “Properties” window for Grim Dawn, click “SET LAUNCH OPTIONS.” Then, paste the following code into the box that appears.
RADV_PERFTEST=aco %command%
Click “OK” to close the “Properties” window.
Step 5: After pasting the code into the box, find the blue “INSTALL” button, and select it to download and install Grim Dawn on your Linux PC.
When the download process is complete, the blue “INSTALL” button will turn into a green “PLAY” button. Select it to enjoy the game!
Troubleshooting Grim Dawn
Grim Dawn is rated Platinum on ProtonDB, indicating that Linux users haven’t had much trouble running the game. That being said, everyone’s experience is different. If you have trouble playing Grim Dawn on Linux, click this link here to check out the ProtonDB page for the game.
