HANDHELD NEWS – Bloober Team’s latest release no longer needs the Proton compatibility layer to run.

One month after its debut, Cronos: The New Dawn now supports a native Linux build. As Bloober Team shared on Steam: “Today, we’ve released a native build of the game for Steam’s handheld console, which means even better performance on this platform. Enjoy Cronos on Steam, wherever you are!”

Cronos: The New Dawn was Deck Verified at launch, but now Steam Deck and Linux players can enjoy it without relying on a compatibility layer. The rise of native Linux support continues, largely fueled by the Steam Deck’s success. For instance, Hollow Knight: Silksong shipped with native Linux support last month, and one of Larian’s engineers created a native version of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Cronos: The New Dawn is now part of a growing library of over 42,000 Steam games with Linux support. More than 9,000 titles are Deck Verified. Among the top ten best-sellers on Steam in the United States (excluding the Steam Deck itself), six are playable or verified on Deck. Only two offer native Linux support — but that’s still progress.

According to Steam’s September hardware survey, Linux’s market share rose to 2.68%, up from 1.92% a year earlier. Although that’s still a small fraction of the platform’s user base, its adoption is steadily increasing, a trend that developers like Bloober Team are noticing. However, kernel-level anti-cheat measures remain a major obstacle for SteamOS and Linux. Most games that require such systems — like Fortnite and Valorant — won’t run on Linux, even with compatibility layers. There are exceptions, such as Halo Infinite and Smite, but many competitive multiplayer games are still incompatible. As a result, many players won’t consider switching to SteamOS or any Linux distribution until those titles become supported.

Within this context, even a 2.68% share of Steam users is a significant milestone for Linux. Regardless of platform preference, it’s always encouraging to see games become available on as many systems as possible.

Source: PCGamer, Steam, Steam Charts, Steam Hardware Survey