Testing and reviewing older games

The PC now has over 40 years of games releases. The largest back catalogue of any platform. The issue however can be getting older games to run. For DOS games we have DOSBox, Virtual Machines and some other options available. However there is an age range of games that were released in the 90s through to the 2010s that are now harder to get running on current PCs running Windows 10/11. And quite a few I have on physical media that were never released digitally.

There are popular games that have communities helping to keep them working, and companies such as Good Old Games that work on games to make them run on newer systems. However there is also Linux. Until a few years ago Linux and Gaming didn't really go together. However with Valve's work on Steam OS and Proton this has all changed. Starting with the release of the Steam Deck I started testing a lot of games in my Steam library to see what would work, and surprisingly the majority work without any problem, and unlike Windows it's almost like using a console. You click Install, wait and then click play. And for older games you need to manually configure the controls sometimes or select the right resolution, but most of the time that's it. They install and just work as Proton is making them work. No messing with ini files or replacing files in the install.

Moving forward I've been messing around with Linux Mint lately and have found so far that if anything even more games seem to be compatible than the Steam Deck. Especially game that fall into that release date range. But on Linux in addition to Steam you also have Heroic for games libraries such as Epic and GOG to make them also work. Plus you can install and add your own games to it to run them too.

I've been testing some games released around 2004 to 2010 and they have all been running fine so far.

On the Steam Deck I've already played through loads of older games such as Doom, Quake 2, X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, Dark Forces etc and they just work. And on Linux Mint I've started to try some others to see what Linux Steam can do.

So far I've tried Tachyon The Fringe, Dungeon Siege, Age of Empires, Baldur's Gate.

Basically what I'm getting at is that for older Windows games it might actually be easier to run them in Linux than Windows. There are loads of older Windows games on Steam with people in the comments and reviews saying they no longer work in Windows. I tested a couple where people were saying this and they installed and run fine in Linux. So it's a good fallback when you can't run an other game in Windows.