s&box from Facepunch now has Native Linux support on Steam

2 Sep 2026 at 9:55 am UTC | Last updated: 2 Sep 2026 at 10:17 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

After a short Beta release, Facepunch have now updated s&box on Steam to provide Native Linux support.

What exactly is it? Once hailed as the successor to Garry's Mod it's a mixture of a game platform and game editor (think a little like Roblox). Powered by Valve's Source 2, with s&box itself being open source.

In the release announcement they said:

"Native Linux Client

The game now ships with a fully playable native Linux client on Steam. This uses the Steam Runtime to provide a common set of dependencies and work across any distro.
People have been reporting good performance increases over the Windows version running in Proton. As well as big performance gains and stability on Steam Deck.

I'm sure we'll get snarky comments about Gmod and Rust's Linux support - this is different, we have made very deliberate choices to get here, we're open-source and we have the full source code and ownership of our engine.

Native Linux Editor

We also got the editor shipping on Linux, this wasn't planned to happen as soon as it did, but the port of the client went so easily that a lot of the editor toolkit simply worked as well.

The editor never really worked all that well under Proton. And whilst there's obviously a good chunk of bugs still, the overall experience is so much better.

The only caveat is this doesn't come with Valve native tools like Hammer, ModelDoc or Animgraph."

Pictured - s&box - Native Linux - Fedora KDE 44

Currently it has an overall Mixed rating, with the most recent being Mostly Negative. It's not exactly doing very well, with a 24 hour peak of just 419 people. A shame, because the tech they've made here is actually really interesting.

The finances for it are quite open too, not just the code - showing it losing a fair amount of money for Facepunch right now. Maybe they'll turn it around but they've got quite the struggle here.

Release Date: 📅 28th April 2026Platform: 🐧 Native LinuxDevs:Facepunch StudiosOfficial links:SteamOfficial Website 🌐 External Sources: store.steampowered.com, sbox.game Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com. Tags: Native Linux, Game Dev, New Release, Open Source, Sandbox, Steam | Apps: s&box 13 Likes Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:Valve emailed about a cyberattack against their shipping partner CEVA Logistics in EuropeLinux kernel 7.2 is officially out nowLinux VRAM management set for more improvements with kernel 7.3True classic SNES JRPG 'Terranigma' comes to PC in early 2027 All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.