I've put together a Wine wrapper for System Shock 2, allowing it to be played on Linux almost like a native game & with no Wine knowledge required.

Simply run the build script to create the wrapper. If the installer files are not alongside the wrapper build files then the path to them will need to be specified either by passing it as an argument to the build script with -respath="<path>" or by setting an environment variable named WINEWRAP_RESPATH containing it. You can change the path to build the wrapper in and the name of the wrapper directory with the -buildpath= and -dirname= arguments. The build path can also be set with the WINEWRAP_BUILDPATH environment variable.

The output will be a directory containing the game set up within a preconfigured Wine prefix, along with its own copy of Wine, extracted game icons, documentation, and start script(s). From there simply run the start script to play. The start script also includes options for creating a shortcut, configuring the wrapper etc.

(to uninstall simply delete the game directory and any shortcuts you created, and the game's user data directory in ~/.local/share if you don't want to keep your saves & settings)

User data is stored under ~/.local/share/sshock2

Full details are in the readme.txt and release notes. Here is the download link:

sshock2_wine.tar.xz
(38.3 kB, SHA256: 3c958a72d6bbaec9671ad17c1abf4267ccb211cf5a871f8abdee493960c3e4c1)

Last updated 2021/07/11

The wrapper uses Wine 6.0. Wine and Winetricks will be downloaded automatically if not present; to avoid redownloading for other scripts the downloaded Wine package will be stored in ~/.cache/winewrap

There shouldn't be any problems as I've previously done a complete playthrough of the game using an earlier version of Wine without issue and there's no reason to suspect this has changed. However if anyone does run into any problems then post in this thread, Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion and/or The "Judas&trade; does this run in Wine" thread v1.173.

Multiplayer has not been tested and may or may not work.

For more of my Linux Wine wrappers check out post 3 in this thread: Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion

Even though the linux version that Valve sells is only a disguised Wine wrapper, it still shows that they are placing way more effort into bringing games to Linux out of the box.

This is not the first time GOG does that. I´m getting tired of complaining to gog support about their lack of willpower to bring the linux version of games to their store. While their competitor Steam continues to offer the same games that gog sells, plus with their linux ports and way more other games that run on linux.
I´m not a big fan of buying on steam, due to their DRM and the way Valve is becoming more like "EA" recently. However unfortunately I usually have to keep buying from them, due to the fact that they seem way more willing to bring Linux ports of games to their store. If you check out there are lots of games that both stores sell. However while GOG usually only sells the Windows and Mac counterparts of those games. Valve also sells the Linux versions.

I hope someday GOG will start treating Linux with more respect. Although GOG´s Free DRM proposal is way more interesting and better for us customers and the fact that they arent the "Cool Chad of High School" like Steam is now. As a consumer I´m forced to continue giving preference to Steam due to the fact that they offer way more games that run on Linux than GOG store.

I'm not sure why the Linux version of SS2 isn't here as it should be pretty trivial from a technical standpoint, but it's worth noting that the Linux version is not available via the Humble Store either. AFAIK CodeWeavers did the Linux release of System Shock 2; that may have something to do with it.

I agree that GOG could & should do more for Linux support, but to be fair it's not entirely down to them:

- Sometimes Linux versions aren't released here due to the publishers/developers not deeming it worthwhile to bring the Linux versions to GOG, because GOG is so much smaller than Steam and the sales figures here will be lower. Buying those games on Steam instead doesn't help things either. I very rarely buy Steam games, and even then it's only at a big discount/low price - usually as part of massively discounted Humble bundle purchases - and with the full intention to re-buy here if/when they get a GOG release, assuming that I like them. In addition, I never buy gift copies of games that use Steam, and don't tolerate any other DRM at all.

- Sometimes Linux versions aren't released here due to incompetence and/or laziness on the part of the developers.

- Sometimes Linux versions aren't released here because of the lack of a Galaxy client for Linux & unwillingness of the publisher/developer to release a version of the game without features that would depend on Galaxy such as achievements (this is in large part GOG's fault, although some blame also goes to the publishers/developers that put such high value on junk features like achievements that they'd rather withhold the release entirely)

- Sometimes Linux versions aren't released here because the rights are split between different developers and require more complex licensing arrangements. Or in the case of older games, the rights to the Linux ports may be in limbo & would require far too much effort & resources to sort out.

As well as contacting GOG you should also be contacting the publishers/developers of titles that have Linux versions elsewhere & asking them about bringing the Linux versions here. I've contacted a number of developers and publishers, and ran giveaways about this before with contact details for the publishers of some of the larger titles (e.g. this one I did at the start of the year).

thanks for making the script, I can now finally play SS2 on linux mint.

I don't really understand though why GOG the people that we pay for the software arn't the ones doing the leg work.

Because they would need written permission, a contract to supply and distribute a Linux version of the game.

So then do it!

"Show the demand".

As I noted in the OP there is actually an official Wine wrapper for SS2, but for some reason it was only made available on Steam. Although I guess it doesn't really matter now, as it apparently broke some time ago and still hasn't been fixed (and now that I think about it, I'm not sure it's even been updated with the changes/fixes that the Windows release has received).

adamhm vs Steam 6-2

Well, I just finished my first ever playthrough of this game (don`t even need to say how awesome it was and how I`m gonna replay it with many different tactics, right), I`m using Linux xubuntu 16.04.03 with Wine staging version 2.21 and things worked from the very start, no tweaks needed, no overrides, nothing... The game installs fine and plays fine. Occasional crashes here and there (usually when I died in the middle of an action) but that`s from the game`s code, and not Wine`s fault. Linux people need to chill more and stop this crying for "native linux". If the game runs fine under Wine, and you can install Wine for free in 20 minutes, what is the big deal? Just one tip for first time players: never use the godmode cheat, it will break your game, you will have to reinstall, because the cheat cannot be deactivated, just don`t mess with it.

Stellar work, thank you so much!
I ran into one or two error messages while running the script, but installing all the necessary packages via apt before fixed that for me under Ubuntu 18.04.
Again, thanks a lot for your script. Game runs great!