Best Sports Games for Ubuntu in 2026 – From Football to Racing

The official licensed football game, with the real leagues, the real players and the Ultimate Team economy built on top of them.

This is the football game most people mean when they say football game, and on Ubuntu the honest route is to stream it. ProtonDB currently rates the Steam version Silver, which means it runs but not cleanly, and that is a poor deal for a full price game you want to play every week. Amazon Luna carries EA SPORTS FC 26 in its Prime library, which turns a compatibility problem into a subscription you already half own.

Konami’s free football game, built around short matches and a squad you grow over time rather than buy outright.

It costs nothing, it runs well under Proton at Gold, and the on-pitch feel is genuinely good, which is the part that matters. The squad building leans hard on collecting players and it will keep asking you for money, but you can ignore all of that and still get a proper game of football out of it. If you want to test whether football games feel right on your machine, start here and spend nothing.

Five a side football played entirely from behind one player, with no menus between you and the pitch and no referee to bail you out.

Sloclap took the studio’s fighting game instincts and pointed them at football, and the result plays nothing like FC or eFootball. You control one outfield player for the whole match, so positioning and reading your teammates matter more than any skill move. Proton runs it at Platinum, which is as clean as it gets. Best game on this list to play with friends who do not normally play football games.

The licensed NFL game, with the full playbook, franchise mode and the yearly roster of real teams and players.

American football is the one major sport with no good native or Proton answer on Ubuntu, so streaming is the whole story here. Madden NFL 26 sits in the Amazon Luna library, which means a Linux desktop and a controller are all you need. If you have never played Madden, the skill floor is high and the tutorials are thorough, so give the practice mode a real hour before judging it.

Note: Madden NFL 27 releases in August 2026 and is not on Luna yet. We will swap this card over once it appears.

An open world racing festival set across Japan, where you drive between events rather than picking them off a menu.

Horizon is the rare racing game that works for someone who does not care about racing games. The driving model flatters you, the map is genuinely pleasant to just drive around, and events range from street races to jumping a car through a barn. Proton handles it at Gold. It is also demanding, so this is one of the few cards where streaming is a real answer rather than a fallback.

A top down rally game covering the sport’s history, from the Group B era onward, with stages built for rhythm rather than realism.

It is a native Linux build, so there is no Proton layer and nothing to configure. The overhead camera sounds like a compromise until you play it, at which point the sense of a car sliding through gravel on a mountain road comes through better than in most first person rally games. It runs on almost anything, which makes it the easiest recommendation on this list for an older laptop.

A serious rally simulation where stages are long, blind and unforgiving, and your co-driver’s pace notes are the only thing keeping you on the road.

This is the opposite of Forza. There is no rewind that makes you feel clever, and a mistake four minutes into a stage costs you the stage. Learning to trust pace notes is the whole skill, and it takes hours before it clicks. Proton rates it Gold. If you have a wheel, this is the game to point it at.

Pure time trial racing on stunt tracks, where you restart instantly and shave hundredths of a second off your own best run.

There are no opponents on the track and no contact, just you against a clock and a leaderboard of people who are better than you. Restarting is instant, which is what makes it addictive: a bad run costs you two seconds, not two minutes. Free to play covers a rotating set of tracks, which is plenty. Proton runs it at Platinum.

The licensed NBA game, with full teams, a long running MyCareer story mode and the deepest basketball simulation on any platform.

On the court it is excellent, and there is no real competitor for licensed basketball. Two honest warnings. Proton rates it Silver, so expect to spend some time on it rather than none. And the game pushes its in-game currency hard across every mode. Boosteroid carries it, which is the cleaner route if you would rather not fight the compatibility layer for a full price game.

Arcade baseball with a stylised look, real depth in the pitching and hitting, and over two hundred legendary players from the sport’s history.

It does not have an MLB licence and it does not need one. The hitting has a proper timing window, the difficulty slider is fine grained enough that it stays fun whatever your level, and local multiplayer is built in rather than bolted on. Proton runs it at Platinum. The best baseball game you can play on Ubuntu without arguing with anything.

The officially licensed cricket game built around the Ashes, covering Test, ODI and T20 formats with the county sides and international teams.

Cricket games are thin on the ground and this is the current one, built around the most recent Ashes series. Batting uses a timing and footwork system that takes a session or two to read, and once it lands, edging a ball to slip feels like your mistake rather than the game’s. Career mode is where most of the hours go.

Note: ProtonDB rates Cricket 26 Silver on a small number of reports so far, meaning it runs but not perfectly. The older Cricket 24 is rated Platinum if you want the safer install.

A licensed boxing game with a large roster of real fighters, built around footwork, guard and body punishment rather than button combos.

It is the first boxing game in years that treats boxing as a sport rather than a brawler. You circle, you jab to measure distance, and you get punished for standing square. That learning curve puts some people off in the first hour, which is a shame, because it is the most rewarding fighting game here once it clicks. Proton rates it Gold, and Boosteroid carries it.

Licensed professional wrestling, with a huge roster, a full creation suite and story modes that lean into the theatre of it.

Wrestling is not a combat sport in the way boxing is, and the game knows it. The appeal is the spectacle, the entrances, and the creation tools that let the community rebuild almost any wrestler in history. Proton rates it Gold. Go in for the showmanship, not the simulation.

Licensed tour golf on real courses, with a swing system based on stick movement and a course designer the community keeps feeding.

The swing mechanic is the whole game and it is a good one: tempo and path both matter, so a rushed downswing slices exactly as it should. Real courses and real pros give career mode weight. Proton rates it Gold. The course creator is the quiet reason people stay, because the community has rebuilt half the famous courses in the world.

Mini golf for up to twelve players at once, on courses that stop pretending to be golf somewhere around the second hole.

A native Linux build, no Proton, no configuration. Everyone putts at the same time rather than waiting turns, which is why it works with a big group and why a round takes twenty minutes instead of an hour. It is on both Boosteroid and Amazon Luna, so a friend on a weak machine has no excuse. The most reliable way on this list to get non-gamers playing something.

Licensed tennis with real players and grand slam venues, built on a timing system that rewards early preparation over reaction.

Tennis games live or die on the shot timing window and this one gets it right, which is why it revived a series that had been dormant for over a decade. The TopSpin Academy tutorials are unusually good and worth finishing before you play anyone. Proton rates it Silver, so it is not effortless, and Amazon Luna carries it if you would rather not deal with that.

A rebuilt version of the two skateboarding games that defined the genre, with the original levels, the revert mechanic and a new soundtrack alongside the old one.

Pro Skater 3 introduced the revert, which is the thing that lets you chain a whole level into one combo, and that single mechanic is why these games still feel good twenty years on. The remake keeps the handling and rebuilds everything around it. Proton rates it Platinum. If you played these as a teenager, be warned that the muscle memory comes back within about ten minutes.

Downhill mountain biking on procedurally generated trails, where a run ends when you crash and the next trail is never the one you just learned.

Native Linux build, so nothing to set up. The bike handling has real weight to it, and because the trails are generated you are reading terrain rather than memorising a course. Runs are short and the restart is quick, which makes it a good game for twenty minutes rather than an evening. It is on Boosteroid too. If you want the newer one, Descenders Next arrived in 2025 and is rated Platinum on Proton, but the original keeps the native Linux build.

An open world playground for biking, skiing, snowboarding and wingsuit flying, set across a compressed version of several American national parks.

It is the extreme sports equivalent of Forza Horizon: a large map, events everywhere, and mass races with dozens of riders going down the same mountain at once. The tone is loud and it will not be for everyone. Proton rates it Gold. Worth it for the wingsuit alone, which is the closest any game here gets to genuine vertigo.

The football management simulation, where you pick the squad, the tactics and the training and never touch a player directly.

This is the deepest game on the list and the one most likely to eat a month of your life. You are reading scout reports, managing egos and watching matches play out from a dugout camera, and a last minute equaliser hits harder here than a goal you scored yourself. Proton rates it Platinum, which is unusual for a game this complex. Fair warning about the save that starts at eleven at night.

Single seater racing management, where you build the car, run the pit strategy and make tyre calls live as the race unfolds.

A native Linux build from 2016 that still holds up, largely because the race weekend loop is so tight. Weather turns, a safety car comes out, and a strategy you set an hour ago becomes the wrong one, which is exactly the drama that makes motorsport worth watching. It runs on anything. The best value on this list if you want depth without a modern GPU.