Lutris
One launcher for games from Steam, GOG, Epic and old discs, using Wine to run the Windows ones.
Our verdict
Lutris is the app you reach for when a game is not on Steam. It collects your Steam, GOG, Epic and Humble libraries plus emulators into a single list, then launches each one with the right settings.
For Windows games it uses Wine, a compatibility layer that lets Windows programs run on Linux without Windows itself. Lutris adds community-written install scripts on top, so a game that would take an afternoon of fiddling often installs in a few clicks.
It replaces nothing you had on Windows, because Windows never needed it. That makes the first hour confusing. Expect to see words like runner, prefix and DXVK on screen. Once a game is set up it sits in your library and starts with one click, and you can ignore the machinery underneath.
What's good
- Puts games from several stores and emulators into one library
- Community install scripts do the fiddly setup for a lot of older Windows games
- Free, with no account needed to use it
What to know first
- More settings and jargon on screen than a Windows player is used to
- When an install script fails the error messages assume you know what Wine is
- Not a store of its own, so you still need accounts with the shops you buy from
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (GPL-3.0)
- How you install it
- App store (Flatpak), .deb installer, .rpm installer, Built-in app store
Windows apps it can replace
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