As per title. While it's great that both games were finally added to GOG, they're both missing the Linux and the Mac versions, despite the fact they're both part of the GOG preservation program, which ensures, among the other things, "This is the best version of this game you can buy on any PC platform." Will they be included eventually?

I would not expect linux-builds (anytime soon).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider seem to run well with wine(-staging-10.15)+vkd3d-proton on AMD cards.

I have some problems with Rise of the Tomb Raider though.
During startup it randomly freezes just before the main-menu with a black screen.

Maybe someone is able to figure out the problem and how to fix it.

Why not expect them, when they are on Steam?

1.) i think it is safe to consider GOG to be done with linux. Especially after the linux-version of galaxy never happened.

2.) As metioned on some other sites: the linux-port was done by a 3rd party company (feral interactive). They would need to work with them to update the linux-version to be offline-able too, which is another obstacle.

3.) "the linux"-API is not very stable. Libraries change alot. New come, old disappear. If you do some search on steam you can find threads about the linux-version being either buggy or completely broken on recent systems. This would have to be fixed too. But for what? That the same problem is back in a few years?

So i doubt that the linux-version is even considered by GOG.

It's just sad that Rise has some issues with wine too.

Regardless of the usefulness of Proton/Wine, I'm asking specifically about Shadow and Rise because they're under the Preservation Program, so I would assume there would be an effort to bring the Mac and the Linux versions as well, even if it involves a third party.

And frankly, I find the defeatist attitude of Linux users towards GOG to be nonsensical. Linux games can still be packed into offline installers and distributed through GOG, the same way Windows games can be. And even Windows users had no GOG Galaxy for years, they could only download offline installers from the browser, so there's no reason why Linux users can't keep doing the same. And in fact there's no shortage of Linux games on GOG anyway.

+1 for the Linux builds. Didn't TR2013 have a Linux build too? I always hoped we'd get that here, sad that we didn't. I understand the Linux ports were handled by third parties, but I wish GOG could get that sorted so they could bring the native Linux builds here.

Just as an FYI, this is straight up not true. Linux is fundamentally no different than Windows. I have a package of World Of Goo for Linux from 2010. Double-clicked, installed, runs just fine. Not old enough? I also have Heavy Metal FAKK2 from 2001 for Linux. Still launches. The only thing it needed was a compatibility layer to get audio working, because OSS audio is now no longer supported natively. However, that is largely the same on Windows. Ever tried loading a 90s Windows game from GOG? Yeah they have to substitute audio libraries there as well, because modern W11 often won't work with that legacy software anymore. My point being: it's no more difficult on Linux than on Windows. If packaged correctly (i.e. shipping all dependencies with the app), legacy Linux software (20+ years old) will run on modern distros just fine.

I would love to see the Linux ports in GOG with the preservation program, even the Mac ports, but probably we will need to wait a lot since the licenses that Feral Intreractive uses to port games expire, you can see that with Tomb Raider 2013 that it used to have a native port for Linux in steam, but the license expired, so it's not available anymore and it doesn´t receive support.

These ports deserve to be in the GOG preservation program.

Glad that you have old games which are still working. But that doesn't mean that every old game is still working and will still work in 10+ years.
You can buy linux-games on gog which are linked against libraries that are considered as security risk and therefore not available on any modern distribution anymore. So either you compile them yourself or you are lost.

Sometimes it is more complex than that. I got a game which were working fine years ago, but is crashing immediately now even if all neccessary libs are available. Alot changed on linux the last decade. It might be a bug in the game which were never found since the game were working anyway back then, but that same bug might cause a crash on newer distributions.

A change in compiler and/or libc can cause problems:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/02/the-glibc-2-41-update-has-been-causing-problems-for-linux-gaming/

So yes, old games might run, but there is never a guarantee.

I am also wondering what do you mean exaclty with "packaged correctly"?

There is an alternative to this that sometimes works. Three or four times I've encountered this issue you mention and I was able to fix it every time by simply creating a symlink with the filename the game was expecting from a newer version of the lib I had installed (or had to install). Not saying this will work in every case, but it's worked in every case I've had, thankfully.

True, that can help.

To be fair, I'm no Linux expert, but this hardly sounds different from the same issues old Windows apps can have. And it's not the first time either that I hear Linux users saying that the difficulties of programming games for Linux are greatly overstated.

GOG is still keeping 32bit Mac builds of a few games even when they no longer work on newer Macs, simply because they can still be of interest to players who own old Macs (or want to emulate them, if that's possible). There's no reason why the same logic can't be applied to Linux games.

I'd say that, if anything, Linux backwards compatibility is greater than Windows', but maybe that's my relative experience with the systems talking. There is a reason people always said you might get initially more problems on Linux, but with some basic skills (and I am, by no measure, a sysadmin) you'll be able to debug and solve them, while things stopping to work on Windows often means an OS reinstall.

I will concur however, that much lesser user base means that even initial support may be not viable business-wise, which makes putting extra effort for making even older games work on Linux just far from profitable. Perhaps an extra financial incentive is needed for GOG; a system where we vote with our money for bringing games back. A game might be in store with a huge red flag 'doesn't work on modern systems' and a pledge/vote to bring back button which translates to some financial commitment from the user's part if GOG manages to make it work again.

No chance. The Linux Ports were done by Feral Interactive and they are very Pro DRM .

I have played the Linux version of Tomb Raider 2013 and honestly the performance is worse when compared to running the Windows version under WINE or Proton. I did a search and this seems to be an across the board issue with Linux ports from Feral.

On top of that it seems the Linux version of TR2013 was pulled by Feral a few years ago.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/02/tomb-raiders-linux-port-from-feral-interactive-delisted-on-steam/

So they don't seem to care about it.

There are over a thousand Linux ports and a thousand and half Mac ports on GOG. Most of which are published by people who have far less resources than anyone who's working on Tomb Raider, for games that are much less popular than Tomb Raider. So that's no excuse. We're first of all paying customers, we're not asking to play games for free. If it's "far from profitable" for developers to support GOG customers the same way they're willing to support Steam customers, then I say that it's "far from profitable" for me to buy their games.

Well, thanks for the informations. I'm not exactly sure what to thing about this. I suppose it could be argued that by not publishing inferior Linux and Mac ports, GOG just did us a favour.

But you can imagine, it's not exactly a nice situation to begin with that a game is published as "the best version available on all platforms", then turns out that Steam has Mac and Linux ports that are actually unavailable on GOG, but then turns out that those two were done by a separate studio which is very pro DRM, and then also turns out that those ports may not be so useful anyway.