Proton update gets 18 more Windows games running on Linux, including Chex Quest HD
Enlarge / The modern remake of an infamous Doom clone, Chex Quest HD is now playable on the Steam Deck and other modern Linux PCs. (credit: General Mills)
To play Windows-compatible games in its Linux-based operating system, the Steam Deck relies on a compatibility layer called Proton. It's a collection of different technologies, including the venerable Wine software and software that translates Windows-native Direct3D API calls into Vulkan API calls that Linux can handle.
Proton is continually updated to fix rendering bugs in specific games and to add new games to the compatibility list; version 8.0 was released yesterday and added support for 18 new games (and fixes rendering bugs in tons of others). Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais called the release "our biggest rebase to date."
The new compatibility list includes a few of the big, recognizable titles you'd expect Valve to prioritize, including the 2023 re-release of Dead Space and Square Enix's Forspoken. But there is one oddball game that stood out to me: Chex Quest HD, the remastered version of a 1996 CD-ROM game that was included for free in boxes of Chex cereal for six weeks in the mid-'90s.