PAYDAY 2's Linux Version Is No Longer Being Supported

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Despite its age, one of my favorite co-op games to play is PAYDAY 2. The sheer amount of content and the gameplay loop still hold up, offering hundreds of hours of enjoyable time with friends. I still go back and play it consistently, and I really love it, especially on the Steam Deck. However, for those of us playing on the Steam Deck, there’s some sad news: the Linux version of the game is no longer supported.

With the Steam Deck running SteamOS, having native Linux versions of games can help performance significantly. We’ve seen clear example of this with Baldur’s Gate 3, we’re having a dedicated Linux build fixed a lot of the performance issues in the later parts of the game. That won’t be the case now with PAYDAY, since the Linux version is no longer being supported.

However, not all hope is lost. The game has been getting significant updates recently thanks to Sidetrack Games, who has taken over development of the game to keep it supported. In the same update post where they announced Linux retirement, they also announced that the game had a massive Engine update, bringing it to 64-bit, DirectX 11 rendering, significantly faster loading times, and in-game voice chat. There’s also a new compression system that makes the game significantly smaller, so we no longer need over 90GB of space to install the game.

And even without the Linux version, it still performs extremely well. I was getting a stable 60 FPS with around a 16W battery drain when fighting off groups of enemies on the Overkill difficulty. This is all at the default settings, which are mostly on high, and the native 1280x800 resolution.

Regardless, PAYDAY 2 remains a great game to play on the Deck, and one I can still happily recommend. It’s great that it’s still getting updates. Despite being around for over 13 years, it will still be one of the first co-op games I recommend people play on the go.

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