Playing Overwatch 2 On Linux

 

I'm not the best at making good choices, so I decided to give Overwatch another look seeing as the sequel just launched. And I remembered Overwatch 1 being pretty simple to run in Wine, so it shouldn't be an issue. Right?

While waiting in endless queues of 400-or-so people, I found the game would just crash after a few seconds. This was while running through Lutris, with lutris-GE-Proton7-31 as the runner. After a bit of confused Googling, I found the game could run correctly using caffe-7.18 runner, and (in my case, at least) by swapping Lutris out for Bottles.

It's available through Flatpak, which makes it a pretty simple install. Just pop this into your terminal:

flatpak install flathub com.usebottles.bottles

Repeat the same command, but replace 'install flathub' with 'run'. This should start the program. Next you will need to install the caffe runner. After downloading, extract it into this directory:

~/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/runners

Run Bottles, then press the '+' button in the top left corner to create a new bottle environment. Select the gaming archetype, and give it a name. Once created, head to the 'Preferences' tab and scroll down to 'Runner Components'. Under here you can change your runner to caffe-7.18. This may take a few seconds to apply, don't be alarmed.

Next, switch to the 'Installers' tab, find 'Blizzard Battle net' and press the '💾' icon to start the installer. Once it's finished, go to the 'Details and Utilities' tab and find Battle net under 'Programs'. Start it, log in and install Overwatch 2. If you have a previous installation, you can copy it into your new bottle environment for Battle net to locate:

~/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/[your bottle name here]/drive_c

Once you're in the game, you'll notice a lot of lag that you may not have experienced before. I would suggest switching the graphics to something lower than you would normally use, and playing some bot games or Deathmatch while the shaders compile. Your performance should begin to improve the more you play.

Sadly, I don't have any tips to reduce the queue times.