The Steam Deck and Steam Machine, among other things, have sparked a surge of interest in getting videogames to run on Linux. For PC games coming through the Xbox app, as well as those provided by the PC Game Pass, these don’t work well right now, for reasons we’ll get to in a bit. Trying to get around them is Xodus, an open-source project that’s aiming to reverse-engineer the aforementioned roadblocks, and emulate the necessary components for Xbox PC games to work on Linux.
As Tom’s Hardware reports, the obstacle preventing Xbox PC games from running on a Linux system comes in three parts. This framework is “Microsoft’s proprietary Game Development Kit (GDK), Xbox identify services, and encrypted MSIXVC packages”. These are responsible for verifying game licenses via the Xbox app, and without them running in the background, games simply crash as they launch, if at all. Xodus, then, is an effort to emulate the framework.
For now, Xodus can log into Xbox services, download game packages and obtain game licenses. Digital Foundry cites one of the project’s contributors, Pawel Lidwin, as saying that they are now trying to replicate GDK functionality. He also says that the project overall is “still relatively far from what we are trying to achieve”. As for running the games themselves, Xodus relies on Proton, DXVK, or Wine.
Microsoft itself has recently announced what it calls the Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC program. This brings four games from the company’s first console – BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, and Fuzion Frenzy – to PC. More recent reports point at the company working on doing the same for Xbox 360 titles as well, though these would roll out gradually between 2027 and 2028.
(Source: GitHub, Tom’s Hardware, Digital Foundry)
