I’m always confused by people saying that Vortex doesn’t work on Linux, when I’ve used it for years now on both my Fedora desktop and my Steam Deck. I didn’t even have to do anything outrageous to get it working. Install with Lutris like anything else made for Windows, press play, it works great.

Edit: Realized this sounded maybe judgmental, when I didn’t mean it to. Not trying to make anyone feel bad in any way. More like encouragement, because once you get over the hump of figuring out how to use tools like Lutris to run games, running Vortex is the same process.

I’ve only had one game the last few years, where you should use the Linux native version but some big mods have hardcoded Windows paths. That and Wabbajack for Skyrim didn’t work in wine back then but there’s far more powerful native tooling now.

I mean, even Sims 4 Studio works in wine. If only wine would be a bit cli-friendlier (profile creation) and had a native way to stick to a certain release.

You mod games on Linux the same way you mod them on Windows.

Bethesda games there is MO2 for linux.

Vortex can work really well on Linux and you can easily install it using steamtinkerlauncher.

For games like BG3 that have their own modding tool, you can run them using Wine/Proton.

You can also just mod manually like GTA3/GTA VC/GTA SA(I played these games on Linux, which is why I’m citing them).

Or you can use a tool made for Linux like Limo.

I’m not aware of general Linux specific tools for this (game specific ones do exist). However:

• Vortex does work on Linux: https://linuxvox.com/blog/vortex-mod-manager-linux/
• So does Curseforge: https://linuxvox.com/blog/how-to-install-curseforge-on-linux/

They both work by you running them in wine and pointing them to the game files created by Steam (or Gog or any windows game installed via Wine or Proton) in the Linux filesystem (e.g. /home/yourname/.steam/steamapps/common/game) instead of windows filesystem (e.g. C:\program files\game)

Modloaders with “bootstrap” fixes will also work; they just have to be installed and run in the same proton/wine prefix as the game. I.e. if you install Cyberpunk 2077 via steam, the bootstrap type mods need to be installed into the game folder or fake-windows file system that Proton makes for the game. It even has it’s own “drive C” folder for the rare times you need 3rd party tools. You also put tools into the game folder as you would on windows. If it has it’s own custom exe you can tell wine/proton to run that instead of the game or even before the game in the same prefix.

I mod games extensively on Linux; they work just as they do in Windows. I’ve played heavily modded Cyperpunk 2077 to completion (all the mod tools work via proton - that takes a little tweaking to get working but is doable - and many mods you just drop into specific sub folders; I played with about 50 mods and I didn’t find a single one that didn’t work on Linux specifically), Stardew Valley, Rimworld and Minecraft for example of bredth. Stardew, Rimworld and Minecraft even have linux specific tools to help.

This is less a case of games run via Linux not being moddable, and more that it has it’s own learning curve (in the same way modding on Windows has a learning curve). Once you understand how the linux filesystem and how proton/wine work, the world is your oyster. Protontricks and Winetricks are not just useful for getting games running or tweaking them, they’re a modders best friend.

You’re talking about modding in general, which is pretty similar in Linux to windows, besides some obligatory learning about Wine/Proton contexts. Hint: just use protontricks and install your windows mods that way.

But what you are actually asking is “why hasn’t someone else made a nice, easy tool for modding like I had on windows?”

And the answer to that is:

No one is stopping you from making it.

Welcome to Linux. You wanted freedom, you got it.

I got very confused by this title… I did search on DuckDuckGo and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_modding was a top result but not far behind was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modding which is not specific to video game.

Because this is the Linux community I would clarify that it’s about game modding, not general modding.

there is a lot of promising linux native programs, but yes - mo2 works fine

nexus mods https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App is gonna be linux native, so cross platform. that’s the sucessor to vortex (and honestly looks like it will be the mod manager)

Mixed result for different games. Nexus mod is somehow doable - https://linuxvox.com/blog/nexus-mods-linux/

Why is Linux different than Microsoft? Most of the games I play aren’t “Linux” games, but the identical Windows software running through a compatibility layer on Linux.

The Steam client on Linux has the same “workshop” tab for adding mods. It’s not in every game, but that’s true on Windows too.

I haven’t had a problem modding games.

I’ve used atlauncher for minecraft without issues. r2modman works perfectly via app image for a lot of steam games as well.

worst comes to worst you can manually drop files in but the tools do exist. it just depends what you’re modding

Rimsort works native in Linux, setting up MO2 for use with Skyrim isn’t very much work either and there’s a ton of guides for it.
Personally I mostly do manual installations though.