Now you can both play the game and access Steam overlay in-game by pressing Shift + Tab. (at the time of writing it is Proton 3.16-7 beta I didn't test any others, but I expect they would work fine too). Then select 'force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool' like so: When all that is done, navigate to System Shock 2 in your library and select properties: Note: I recommend downloading the latest version of Proton. To use this solution - forget about the 'native' fix and undo the changes you might have made to the launch options under properties.įirst we enable Steam Play for the whole Library - by clicking on Steam in the top left corner of the window and clicking on settings, followed by clicking on Steam Play on the left side of the list - like so:Īfter clicking OK - Steam will download the required files. Audio quality is also noticeably improved. The alternative (and recommended) solution is to force the use of Steam Play, as that allows for the Steam Overlay to work. Not to worry though - native games will always run natively unless forced to use Steam Play instead (which is exactly what we'll be doing). Solution 2 fixes all of that and I recommend using it - but it does require you to enable Steam Play for your whole Library. Apart from that there seemed to be some audio glitches as well. While solution 1 does indeed work - Steam overlay however does not, at least it didn't on my machine. Enabling Steam Play for your entire Library and forcing Steam Play to be used for the game. Fix the 'Native' version by copying a file to a different location and by adding some startup options.Ģ. There are 2 possbile solutions to the problem:ġ. The game does of course work fine when running it directly with a modern version of Wine, but then Steam won't clock your playtime, won't list you as in-game etc.īy default however the game doesn't seem to be loading properly in most cases it starts, a black screen pops up and it closes. While gamers have been able to enjoy System Shock 2 on Windows without a fuss for some time now, the same does not apply to Linux gamers.ĭespite being listed as a native Linux game on Steam, the game does not actually run natively - but is instead wrapped in Wine - a Windows compatibility layer that is also the basis for Steam's great new 'Steam Play' solution (aka Proton).

Advanced users will have either figured out the solution themselves or found the solution in the forums by now.

This guide is intended for users that are either unfamiliar with Linux, or just starting out.

System shock 2 manual