You know what, Resident Evil is one of my favourite franchises, and I have to just say that the plot is bullshit. That’s not to say that it’s irredeemable, I happen to love trash, but I don’t think you’ll be missing any key beats by jumping in at any point

I know you played 1-4, but if I were to pick a modern entry for someone, I’d say starting with REmake 2. Resident Evil 2 is iconic, lays most of the groundwork for the interconnected plot such as it is, and the remaster has quality of life that you’d be missing from the original.

Unless you’re really into old games, I’d give 1 a miss. Technically there’s a remaster too, but tank controls are a hard sell.

If you are into old games, Flesh Made Fear scratches that vintage PS1 survival horror itch and just came out this year. Phenomenal indie game

Most things work great out of the box these days. If you do your gaming through Steam already then it’s the easiest it could be. Otherwise you can download some other platform like Lutris to manage your compatibility for you

There are definite exceptions though. There’s this great website ProtonDB that tells you how compatible games are if you want to look before you leap.

Kernel-level anticheat can make some games unplayable on Linux. Basically, it’s intended to detect cheaters, but it gives false positives on Linux. On the flip side, the software is super invasive, like once you’re aware of how it works it will make you wonder why anybody would allow that shit on their computer. Probably because they don’t know any better, but still. This is more of a problem with high budget PvP games like Call of Duty, so depending on your taste you may never encounter it

Hardware for the most part seems to just work through plug and play. However, if your stuff is highly customizable through software - like Razer Synapse/Chroma/whatever they call it these days - you may not have access to all the features.

Most Linux installers give you the option to just try out the OS in a non-permanent environment. So you could find a distro that appeals to you and then give it a test run without comitting to a full installation. It’d be a good way to see if there’s any hardware or compatibility issues.

If you have an Intel/Nvidia rig and are thinking about gaming, I recommend pop_os! I’ve been using it for a few years now and I have no complaints.

Credit where it’s due, around the time Dying Light 1 came out, Roger Craig Smith was lending his voice to Chris Redfield, one of the more iconic zombie guys from Resident Evil.

My favorite Redfield moment was when, without a shred of irony, he talks smack about the villain acting like a comic book villain. Then in the same breath, he punches a six-ton boulder into submission.

Dying Light also really kinda shook up the zombie slaying dynamic with parkour. It seems like a fairly minor thing now, but that freedom of movement was a pretty big deal at the time, even if it was pretty janky.

Narratively, I agree that Crane isn’t a very strong character. He’s a dime-a-dozen government goon turned idealist. I don’t even remember how the story ends, or even most of the major beats except for a couple of major characters.

But at the time, to kick zombie butt while scooting around the rooftops and listening to Chris Redfield quip one-liners: those were special times even if it was a decade ago. They’re probably trying to recapture that magic, but I don’t know. It was lightning in a bottle and you can’t always get that back