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Image: Xodus

Gaming on Linux is in a renaissance period right now, with projects popping up everywhere to tackle long-standing issues and allow gamers dissatisfied with Windows 11 to move onto pastures new. One such project is Xodus, which aims to make Xbox PC games - including Game Pass titles - become playable on Linux and Mac.

The project, which is staffed by three contributors, including a developer from the third-party Heroic Games Launcher application, recently reached some important milestones.

According to Pawel Lidwin, the team has already "figured out authorisation and game downloads", and they're now moving on to replicating GDK functionality, the framework used by these titles to handle integration with Xbox services like achievements, multiplayer, streaming and so on. Pawel told me that "we are still very much WIP... still relatively far from what we are trying to achieve."

Would you like to run Xbox Game Pass games on Linux?

The nature of software development means that it's impossible to say when or even whether Xbox games will become playable on Linux PCs, but it's fascinating to see these sorts of projects given the outsize impact they can have. For example, if the team is able to get Xbox Play Anywhere and Game Pass games running on Linux, it's possible that the system could be extended to handle original Xbox back-compat games too.

However, the project still relies on the likes of Proton, dxvk or Wine to actually handle the games themselves, so specific patches might be required for broad compatibility. Not all games will be supported either, with GDK + MSIXVC format titles being the focus rather than older UWP titles.

If you have some expertise and would like to contribute, the project's GitHub page includes a link to their various repositories and their Discord server.

What do you think of the project? Let me know in the comments below.

[source github.com]