Trailmakers is fun

build cars, boats, airplanes to recover salvage from a open world

Windows only and runs through Proton on steam
https://www.protondb.com/app/585420

Actually, forget gaming. Trying to get games to run on Linux with a zillion mods, mod managers etc etc etc is *really* good fun! I didn't realise how much I enjoyed it until I saw a comment by a Linux user who'd tried something and said: "My game is now broken in a new and interesting way..." Exactly!

Anyway, Steam has a list of Linux friendly games here... https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1275551808 But lists are never as good as someone actually recommending something so I too hope people will continue to post suggestions! My suggestion is to play Daggerfall via a mod to SkyrimSE called Skygerfall! The Daggerfall main quest but with a better game engine and graphics...

You could try "Kenshi" using photon. I haven't done that yet, and it doesn't seem to work for everyone, but many seem to have a good experience running it.
That game is so open world and unbalanced (in a world where regular people wear straw hats and rags as armor, and use iron clubs, a crossbow is extremely strong, for example) that you can find exploitative gameplay to get ahead even without thinking, and there are clear 'best choices', but it's also nice because it's not all the same mush, unless you only go for the best, then it kind of is.

Otherwise you have a lot of sandbox stuff you can do, it's just that the world is awful and hostile and being a goody goody and/or a loner is a lot less viable than being the biggest jerk you can be while also having a big squad along with you for safety, but, that's also an upside.

Make your own goal, be a wandering pacifict doctor who persuades attackers to relax by beating them up with your staff and then patching them up while they're in a coma you've beaten them into.
Be a farmer, be a ronin samurai, be a kidnapping ninja bounty hunter, be a slave, be a slaver, be a psychopath who abducts people and feeds them to the wildlife, run a cult, wage war on cults, grow drugs, sell drugs, crack down on drug sellers, join a gang, create a gang, raid strongholds, create strongholds (you can make your own outposts but that can get you attached to them, and exploration in Kenshi is a lot of fun, imho, but the game also lets you just walk away and leave your base unattended in that case, but the psychological aspect of "I must protect ths small plot" can get in the way of letting go).
There is no point to this game but it's fun.

Note: The game has things like slavery, bad language, racism/speciescism/robotism lol, misogyny, religious zealots, cannibals, psychopaths and other things, but they're only as glorified as you let them be, and you can fight against all of them, too.

Champions of Regnum Online has a native Linux client. (Also in Steam.)

Oh, right, Dwarf Fortress has a Linux version, too.

I took a look... It's a huge open world! And I absolutely loved what you said here. But there's no way I can deliberately play being a 'jerk' even though maybe I am one?? Several of my on-line friends played evil in Baldur's Gate and I tried it once but I didn't get very far. I felt too sorry for the NPCs... My husband says I take immersion too far...Back to playing SkyrimSE...sigh...

Sometimes it is luck but it is based on how many people you have compared to the bandits - if there are 10 of them and 1 of you, they will chase you (although you can take down 10). However, you can just go to all the nearest villages and recruit people and have 30+ within a minute or two, then they will leave you alone. You then learn which factions you like (villagers from different factions have different troop trees and they branch out - you can train up cavalry, foot soldiers, archers, crossbows, etc.). You can recruit NPCs from taverns - they allow you to kit them out with specific armor, weapons and you can train them very specifically - later on you can make them vassals of your own kingdom and ask them to gather their own armies - the game gets big, but that takes a while to get there!

I like how you can join other people's fights and you can rescue farmers and peasant women who can be trained up to be two of the strongest units (and you cannot get them from anywhere else).

Yes, I do like it too much probably!

OK - you've convinced me! I *will* give it another go. I used the demo version which is called Mount and Blade... You mentioned Warband in your original post so I'm trying to figure out what the demo version really is!

I think the old demo was what I started with and was like an alpha version or something like that. Warband was possibly the full commercial release of the same game released on Steam with a few extra features. I would recommend the Warband version as it replaces the original really. Looks like the demo is on Steam, so should be able to get hold of it.

Well, you don't have to be a jerk, one of my more liked playthroughs was said pacifist doctor (well in the constraints of the game) with a staff who'd heal anyone humanoid even if they attacked him, only living off sold weapons he took away, and simple day labor to satisfy the other constraints I gave myself like:
A meal every day, 6 hours of sleep every day, no crazy running around (this made even a trip to a neighbor town an actual trip that might warrant putting up sleeping bags etc), no stealing (other than taking weapons away), so sometimes a little bit of mining was appropriate, but with breaks inbetween, etc.

Now, when I say pacifist, I mean I tried to pay off bandits and co, but if they attacked then they'd get staved, if need be into a gargling comatose mess...but free healthcare for it and since it was blunt damage, no dismemberment.

I tries to 'roleplay' as much as possible, hanging out in bars sitting on stools for socializing listening to chatter.
Getting that sleep (and taking it easy the next day if a medical spree took the sleep away, the game has no fatigue, so, gotta make your own), which often costs a fee in mosts inns.

This guy was a good guy as much as I could do it, followed a caravan for some time, patching them and bandits up, visiting cities I have never been before in the game, until I finally ended up near some crater that had a bounty hunter encampment where many were driven to the brink of insanity due to constant stress due to massive arachnid assaults, controlled by a very nebulous entity (which I won't spoil).

Well, curiosity got the best of the good old doctor, and he snuck past some beasties in an opportune moment, saw a strange structure in the middle of a lake, swam to it...but then got ripped apart and eaten alive by bugs.

That closed the chapter of that character.

I also had a completely self sufficient commune that did absolutely NO trading, thing is, this ended up being one of the most ridiculous runs ever since the game starts you with 'greenfruit' farming, but greenfruit doesn't really grow in the standard starting area, wheat does, but wheat farming requires research and the books that are usually easily bought aplenty and cheap, I could not buy and instead had to rely on raiding ....ancient ruins.

So the commune leader ended up as a sneaky ninja tech raider who went to insane places, past all sorts of perils and dangers (oh and I could not recruit anyone with a fee, so it was free recruits and freeing slaves, which merely have a chance to follow, even if they decide to actually leave since some slaves are just too fearful and will stay)...

Just to do some wheat farming, hahaha.
Bringing in not just the basic books but also high tier artefacts that went all the way up to hydroponics and whatnot, ridiculous.
(Edit: Oh yeah, at one point the black ninja gang took over my entire compound, then starving bandits also poured in and kind of mingled, I laughed at how many damn people were in MY little piece of ...bleak desert, ah getting them out was an adventure in itself)

Right now I'm playing a band of seven thugs that use spiked clubs because they have an increased bleed multiplier...literally bloodthirsters.
Smashing bones and whatnot without the dismemberment of other edged weapons.

Might play a martial arts monastery next, going into the mountains, all secluded to brew sake for trade and starting fights with other 'dojos' (aka factions).

I finally got Mount and Blade (Warband) to run... The demo just wouldn't work for me but Steam has it on offer this week so I decided I'd risk it. I realised that my problem was I was using the latest version of DirectX and once I reverted to an earlier version, all was well. So if anyone tries this and gets a runtime error then check the DirectX thing first. It reminds me of Ultima IX - Ascension and some game (name forgotten) that I never got to run properly on the Spectrum! I always thought that the 'Spectrum' game looked a lot of fun so maybe Mount and Blade will make up for it. Only just started a game so am being beaten by loads of people in an arena... I can understand why it appeals though and at its current price it's worth giving a go. The original poster didn't want things to move too fast - if I remember rightly - and Mount and Blade does have really good game settings...

I still have to do something about Geist's suggestion which also sounds intriguing...

Geist - if you pass by here any time soon. How are you running Kenshi? You mentioned some time ago that you weren't using Proton... As you say, people seem to have hit and miss experience via Steam and Kenshi... but they say the same over SkyrimSE and that works fine for me...

There's Minetest, an open source game similar to Minecraft but with more emphasis on customization:

https://www.minetest.net

I run three public servers for the game, all in capital letters in the list: THE CREATIVE GARDENS (creative mode), THE DIGITAL FARMS (survival but without PvP or monsters) and THE VALLEYS (sandbox mode).

I want to ask that is this WINE running "Windows Steam" or "Linux Steam" running games with wine? I dont know about that..

If I've understood your question, Steam will install an appropriate version on your Linux box. If you enable Steam Play then that will install Proton which uses Wine.