Civilization V Comes to Linux as Steam Breaks the 500 Linux Games Mark

Fans of Firaxis’ Civilization series tend to be passionate, so whenever a new title gets announced, you can almost hear the inner-excitement from fans the world over. When Beyond Earth was announced in April, that was no exception; as a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, the game has a lot of potential, and a lot to live up to.

Perhaps no group of fans were found to be quite as excited as those who support the Linux OS, though. For the first time ever (as far as I’m aware), Firaxis would be bringing a Civilization title to Linux. Adding to that excitement is the simple fact that Firaxis is just the latest of large game developers starting to pay attention to the OS. Just last month, CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was also brought to Linux, and we found out just this week that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, will also be hitting the platform at initial launch.

Alright – it seems I’m getting so excited here that I’m failing to get right to the point of this post.

As we can now see, Beyond Earth was actually not to be Firaxis’ first Civilization on Linux. Over at Steam today, Civilization V graces the top of the site with the words, “Now Available on SteamOS”. For those who might not be aware, SteamOS is based on Linux, and as such, whenever you see a game support SteamOS, it’s Linux support, plain and simple.

Linux hasn’t had a serious dearth of strategy games, with Paradox bringing over a few of its titles at the launch of Steam for Linux, but as far as the genre goes, Firaxis’ titles could be considered to be the cream of the crop. To have Civ V now available for Linux is simply amazing, and I give kudos to Firaxis or whoever made the port a reality.

As of the time of this post, all of Civilization V‘s content is on sale at Steam for 75% off. Whether or not you’re a Linux user, it’s a game well-worth picking up.

Civilization V hitting Linux is undoubtedly exciting (it’d have to be to justify all of those words I just wrote), but also exciting is the fact that the number of unique Linux titles at Steam has just broken through the 500 landmark. Currently, we’re sitting at 516, but that’s a number that’s growing very rapidly. Could we see 1,000 by this time next year? It’s certainly not outside the realm of reason.