In a surprising turn of events, Cyberpunk 2077 will be playable thru Steam Play on Linux operating systems starting tomorrow. This is all made possible thru Steam's Proton compatibility layer which allows Windows-based games to run on Linux. Phoronix spotted Cyberpunk 2077 support in an update for Proton, version 5.13-4 which was made specifically to add support for the hot new game.
The only requirements are an AMD Radeon graphics card, a Steam copy of the game (obviously), and the Mesa 20.1 git (Mesa is an open-source implementation for APIs like OpenCL and Vulkan). To see what's recommended for best performance, check out our list of Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements, but note that you won't want to use an Nvidia card.
It is strange to see Nvidia cards not being supported at the moment. We don't know the reason why but hopefully this changes soon. However, you can always stream Cyberpunk 2077 through GeForce Now.
It's great to see games like Cyberpunk 2077 being added to Steam's Proton library of games. Proton has brought more Windows-based titles to Linux and helped grow the Linux gaming community.
