A Quick Guide to Install and Play GOG Games on Linux

Unfortunately, GOG does not offer a client for Linux that you can use.

…

You can use any of the following game clients on Linux:

• Lutris
• Heroic Games Launcher
• Bottles

I found Lutris to be the easiest, and quickest to be able to run a Windows-exclusive GOG game on Linux. So, let me start with it…

I found Lutris to be a complete pain. GOG Galaxy in Bottles and Heroic Games Launcher have been much better.
- I have been using Lutris but I am always happy to learn! Do you know a good guide you could point me towards to get started with Galaxy in Bottles?
Heroic was the closest to a steam-like experience for GOG games to me. (While having a very Epic-esque UI).

Lutris worked OK. But seemed to need more tweaking to make things work.

They all have there pluses. Currently I really like Heroic.

Lutris has community scripts to install.
Can be nice for the different versions of games out there, not just gog.

Bottles is cool because it really focuses on you having complete control is wine.

Heroic is great because you can log into gog through it and install the games. Somewhat like Steam. Just noticed you can have Heroic link installed games to Steam

I have found that lutris scripts are often so out of date that they often break as much as they solve.

Battle.net games had this problem for a long time tested on 2 different systems. Bottles worked perfectly by default.

Lutris will also let you install a game from a GoG offline installer using the install script from GoG (using the script means that if there are dependencies like the game needing a specific DirectX version it gets automatically configured in Wine).

Also if I understand correctly the article, going via Bottles means you have a single Wine "instance" (i.e. a wine prefix) for all your GoG games - as GoG access in managed via GoG Galaxy which is a Windows program - whilst Lutris by default gives you one wine prefix per game, so it's a bit better isolated and you can chose different Wine versions for different games (for those games were latest is not bestest).

Last but not least, if you want further isolation from your system in Lutris there is a "command prefix" option (under runtime options if I remember it correctly) where you can put the prefix for the command that runs wine with your game, which let's you run things like firejail which sandbox the whole Wine instance and whatever game it's being used to run (in my system I have it as default, configured to deny things like network access and privilege escalation). This is maybe more applicable for people sailing the high seas, but it will also do things like blocking games from sending game analytics over the network if configure as I did to block network access.

@Sunshine A tool I find way too rarely mentioned in that context is
https://constexpr.org/innoextract/ - it allows to unpack the Windows and Linux installers from GoG without actually running them.

That's for instance relevant if you are on an ARM computer and don't want to bother installing box64 just to get a DOS game running.

I don't use GOG. I'm not going to let them treat me as a second class citizen, when Steam treats me as first class.

One of these two entities actually lets me own my games. To where I can install them from local files even without an internet connection. One of these entities leases me games that I can install with an internet connection as long as they see fit. They are not the same.
- Learning that steam may delist a game if its offered by another store for cheaper has definitely soured my opinion of them. GOG should make a native installer though.
@Limonene

I appreciate what Valve does for Linux gaming, but GOG gives me the freedom to use the client I prefer (Heroic, GOG Galaxy, Minigalaxy, …) or no client at all. When I buy a game, I receive a ZIP file with everything I need to run the game, without requiring an account or an internet connection. GOG Galaxy may only be available as a Windows executable, but I run it on Linux, and they allow me to do so, no questions asked.

@Sunshine
Steam doesn't even let you own games you paid for, so it treats you as a pleb in feudal times - it's just that at this precise moment in time this isn't a bad quality of life. But your existence is nothing but the whim of Steam - which includes the option to shut down everything & end your existence.
You want to elaborate on that?
- I'm not OP but I use GOG significantly less ever since I switched to Linux and got a Steam Deck.
  
  Steam has an official Linux client, GOG does not
  
  Steam syncs my savegames between PC and Steam Deck out of the box, GOG does not
  
  Steam setups all the Proton-stuff and I only have to click play, GOG does not
  
  I currently use Heroic but until GOG commits some more resources into their Linux ecosystem I'm just going to use them sparingly.
- GOG released a Windows client, but no Linux client. My problem is with being treated worse than a Windows user.
  
  In comparison, itch.io has no Windows client and no Linux client (in part because some of the stuff they sell is not software). So I have no problem buying through itch.io.
@Limonene @Sunshine
🤕
Dependence makes you a first-class citizen, and freedom a second-class citizen???
THAT's a strange way of looking at first-classness!
🧐