PlayOnLinux 5.0 Alpha Released With Redesigned UI, Phoenicis

It's been a long time since last hearing anything new with PlayOnLinux, a graphical front-end to Wine catered towards making it easier running Windows games on Linux, but they are out this weekend with a version 5.0 alpha release.

PlayOnLinux 5.0 Alpha 1 is out today along with a similar PlayOnMac build too. While there's been nothing to report on PlayOnLinux during the recent Wine-based boom with Steam Play / Proton and Lutris, the PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac developers have been quietly working on some big improvements.

PlayOnLinux 5.0 Alpha has a completely redesigned user-interface and rolls out their new "Phoenicis" platform. This new platform is decentralized, Git-based, and improves POL's script engine. The current PlayOnLinux 5.0 Alpha release has support for about 135 different games.

Moving forward, the PlayOnLinux developers are also investigating virtualization and/or container technologies for helping to improve the gaming experience.

More details in the announcement just posted to PlayOnLinux.com.