How to play Elden Ring on Linux
Elden Ring is an action RPG developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki in collaboration with George R.R. Martin. Here’s how you can play Elden Ring on your Linux PC.
Getting Elden Ring working on Linux
Elden Ring is not a native Linux video game. Instead, Valve has optimized Elden Ring for the Steam Deck, which runs Linux. As a result, it runs well on every Linux OS — but only with the help of Steam Play and Proton.
If you’d like to play Elden Ring on your Linux PC, you must install the Linux Steam client. To install the Steam client on Linux, open up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard or searching for “terminal” in the app menu.
With the terminal window open, the installation can begin. Follow the installation commands below that correspond with the Linux OS you use on your PC.
Ubuntu
Run the following apt install command to get Steam running on your Ubuntu system.
sudo apt install steam
Debian
You’ll need to download the latest Steam DEB package to your computer on Debian before installing it. To download it, use the following wget download command.
wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steam.deb
After downloading the latest Steam DEB package to your Debian computer, install Steam using the dpkg command.
sudo dpkg -i steam.deb
With the Steam DEB package installed on your system, you must correct any dependency issues that occurred during the installation process.
sudo apt-get install -f
Arch Linux
On Arch Linux, the Steam app is installed through the “multilib” software repository. To get it working on your Arch system, open up the /etc/pacman.conf file in a text editor (as root).
With the text editor open and ready to edit, find the “multilib” line and remove the # symbol from in front. Then, remove the # symbol from the lines directly below. Save when done, and run the pacman -Syy command.
sudo pacman -Syy
Run the pacman -S command to install the Steam client on Arch Linux when the “multilib” software repository is enabled.
sudo pacman -S steam
Fedora/OpenSUSE
On both Fedora and OpenSUSE, the Steam app is installable via software repositories included out of the box. However, the Flatpak version of Steam works much better on these operating systems, so we suggest following those instructions instead.
Flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam
With the Steam app installed, open it up and log in with your username and password. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions below to get Elden Ring working on your Linux PC.
Step 1: Open up the “Steam” menu inside the Steam app and click on the “Settings” button. Once inside the Steam settings area, find the “Steam Play” section and click on it with the mouse.
Check both available boxes in the “Steam Play” section to enable Proton support. Then, click on the “Ok” button to confirm your choice.
Step 2: Find the “Store” button inside the Steam app and click on it with the mouse to load up the Steam store. After loading up the Steam store, find the search box and click on it with the mouse.
Step 3: Type in “Elden Ring.” Press the Enter key to view the search results. Look through the results for “Elden Ring” and click on it with the mouse to go to the Elden Ring Steam store page.
Step 4: On the Elden Ring Steam store page, find the green “Add to cart” button and click on it with the mouse to add the game to your Steam cart. After adding the game to your cart, click on the cart icon to purchase it for your system.
Step 5: Once you’ve purchased the game, click on the “Library” button to access your Steam games library. Then, find the search box and type in “Elden Ring.” Next, look through the search results for “Elden Ring,” right-click on it, and select “Properties.”
Step 6: In the Elden Ring “Properties” area, find the “Compatibility” section, and check the box that says “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool.” Set it to “Proton Experimental” for Elden Ring.
Step 7: After setting Elden Ring to “Proton Experimental,” find the “General” tab in the “Properties” area and click on it. Then, paste the following code into the launch options box.
DXVK_ASYNC=1 DXVK_STATE_CACHE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 PROTON_USE_SECCOMP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=no_upload_hvv,single_queue gamemoderun %command%
Step 8: Find the blue “INSTALL” button and select it with the mouse to download and install Elden Ring. When the installation process is complete, the blue “INSTALL” button will become a green “PLAY” button. Select it to start up Elden Ring.
