With Valve's impressive work on the Proton tool for Linux and the Mac's Game Porting Toolkit and CrossOver options, few games are truly "Windows only" these days. The exceptions are those with aggressive, Windows-based anti-cheating tools baked in, something that hit back hard against players eager to dive into a new superhero shooter.

Marvel Rivals, an Overwatch-ish free-to-play hero shooter released in early December 2024, has all the typical big online game elements: an in-game shop with skins and customizations, battle passes, and anti-cheating tech. While Proton, which powers the Linux-based Steam Deck's ability to play just about any Windows game, has come very far in a few years' time, its biggest blind spots are these kinds of online-only games, like Grand Theft Auto Online, Fortnite, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, and the like. The same goes for Mac players, who, if they can work past DirectX 12, can often get a Windows game working in CrossOver or Parallels, minus any anti-cheat tools.

Is there harm in trying? For a while, there was 100 years' worth. As detailed in the r/macgaming subreddit and at r/SteamDeck, many players who successfully got Marvel Rivals working would receive a "Penalty Issued" notice, with a violation "detected" and bans issued until 2124. Should such a ban stand, players risked entirely missing the much-prophesied Year of the Linux Desktop or Mainstream Mac Gaming, almost certain to happen at some point in that span.

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© NetEase

The more than two decades since Half-Life 2's release have been filled with plenty of rumors and hints about Half-Life 3, ranging from the official-ish to the thin to the downright misleading. As we head into 2025, though, we're approaching something close to a critical mass of rumors and leaks suggesting that Half-Life 3 is really in the works this time, and could be officially announced in the coming months.

The latest tease came just before the end of 2024 via a New Year's Eve social media video from G-Man voice actor Mike Shapiro. In the voice of the mysterious in-game bureaucrat, Shapiro expresses hopes that "the next quarter century [will] deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millennium's first (emphasis added)... See you in the new year."

#Valve #Halflife #GMan #2025 pic.twitter.com/mdT5hlxKJT

— Mike Shapiro (@mikeshapiroland) December 31, 2024

The post is all the more notable because it's Shapiro's first in over four years, when he concluded a flurry of promotional posts surrounding the release of Half-Life: Alyx (many of which were in-character as G-Man). And in 2020, just after Alyx's release, Shapiro told USGamer that he had recently worked on a "blast from the past" project that he would "announce... on my Twitter feed when I'm allowed to" (no such announcement has been forthcoming for any other game).

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© Geoff Keighley

Valve reportedly has plans for what could be a streaming console, plus a new controller, and perhaps a wireless VR device.