A setup_complete.sh script is available that automates the full setup. It detects whether you are on an Arch-based or Debian/Ubuntu-based distro and installs Wine (Staging) accordingly, then proceeds to set up DXVK, WebView2, Battle.net, and W3Champions.

bash setup_complete.sh

You can optionally pass a custom wine prefix path and a GitHub token (needed to download the DXVK artifact without the gh CLI):

bash setup_complete.sh --prefix="$HOME/Games/W3Champions" --token="<your-github-token>"

If you prefer to follow the steps manually, continue below.

At least wine 10.16 is required, which added initial support for D3DKMT objects.

Those are used by the Chromium based WebUI of Warcraft III that was introduced with Reforged.

Before wine 10.16, only Proton supported these shared resources.

Personally, I found the most stable experience using version 10.18. Some later versions have actually caused some issues. For now, wine-10.18 (Staging) is the recommended version to use, until I was able to do more testing with later versions.

pacman -S wine-staging

First, enable 32-bit support and add the WineHQ signing key:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

Then add the repository for your distribution. Use the block that matches your OS:

Debian 12 (Bookworm):

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/bookworm/winehq-bookworm.sources

Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble):

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/noble/winehq-noble.sources

Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy):

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/jammy/winehq-jammy.sources

Then install wine-staging and winetricks:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging winetricks

Since wine added support for shared resources, DXVK has not yet published a release that is compatible with this new change. However, the support is implemented on the master branch thanks to the following Pull Request.

To get a supported DXVK version one can manually download the artifacts from the action workflows.

Once you got a version with support, extract the ZIP file.

unzip <dxvk-branch-download-revision>.zip

Assuming you are in the same directory as when you extracted the DXVK ZIP file, you should have two directories.

x64 and x32.

Then you can install this DXVK version in the desired wine prefix as follows:

export WINEPATH="$HOME/Games"
export WINEPREFIX="$WINEPATH/W3Champions"

mkdir -p "$WINEPREFIX"
wineboot --init
winetricks -q dxvk

echo "Installing DXVK DLLs"
for dll in ./x64/*.dll; do
  cp "$dll" "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32/"
done
for dll in ./x32/*.dll; do
  cp "$dll" "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/syswow64/"
done

Before, only a very old WebView2 runtime version was supported (109.X). Using the new versions as described above, one can install the very latest WebView2 runtime versions, which is required by W3Champions.

WEBVIEW_DOWNLOAD_URL="https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=2124701"
WEBVIEW_DOWNLOAD_PATH="$HOME/Downloads/MicrosoftEdgeWebView2RuntimeInstallerX64.exe"
curl -L "$WEBVIEW_DOWNLOAD_URL" --output "$WEBVIEW_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

wine "$WEBVIEW_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

The default Windows version is typically set to "Windows 10". This is fine.

If it is set to "Windows 11", W3Champions will later only render a white screen.

You must tell the msedgewebview2.exe that the Windows version is 7.

If you forget to do this, W3Champions will later only render a white screen.

You can either do this using winecfg or by running the following in a terminal.

REG_FILE=$(mktemp /tmp/wine_reg_XXXXXX.reg)

cat > "$REG_FILE" <<'EOF'
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\msedgewebview2.exe]
"Version"="win7"
EOF

wine regedit /S "$REG_FILE"

BNET_DOWNLOAD_URL="https://downloader.battle.net/download/getInstaller?os=win&installer=Battle.net-Setup.exe"
BNET_DOWNLOAD_PATH="$HOME/Downloads/Battle.net-Setup.exe"
curl -L "$BNET_DOWNLOAD_URL" --output "$BNET_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

wine "$BNET_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

After installing Battle.net, login and download Warcraft III. Then run Warcraft III once to verify the installed wine and dxvk versions work.

W3CHAMPIONS_DOWNLOAD_URL="https://update-service.w3champions.com/api/launcher-e"
W3CHAMPIONS_DOWNLOAD_PATH="$HOME/Downloads/W3Champions_latest_x64_en-US.msi"
curl -L "$W3CHAMPIONS_DOWNLOAD_URL" --output "$W3CHAMPIONS_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

This should work without any errors. The login should now not crash since we use a new version of the WebView2 runtime.

wine "$W3CHAMPIONS_DOWNLOAD_PATH"

wine "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files/W3Champions/W3Champions.exe"

When the mouse disappears, switching workspaces while moving the mouse tends to re-render it on top of the W3Champions window. Preventing the window manager from decorating the Warcraft and W3Champions windows can help. As a last resort, you can use a virtual desktop in wine — the cursor will be rendered properly at all times inside it.

On Hyprland, setting the following windowrules can help:

windowrule = content game,class:(explorer.exe),title:()
windowrule = content game,class:(battle.net.exe),title:(Battle.net)
windowrule = content game,class:(w3champions.exe),title:(W3Champions)
windowrule = content game,class:(warcraft iii.exe),title:(Warcraft III)
windowrule = workspace 2,class:(battle.net.exe),title:(Battle.net)
windowrule = workspace 3,class:(explorer.exe),title:()
windowrule = workspace 3,class:(w3champions.exe),title:(W3Champions)
windowrule = workspace 4,class:(warcraft iii.exe),title:(Warcraft III)
windowrule = tile,class:(battle.net.exe),title:(Battle.net)
windowrule = tile,class:(w3champions.exe),title:(W3Champions)
windowrule = tile,class:(warcraft iii.exe),title:(Warcraft III)
windowrule = noinitialfocus,class:(explorer.exe),title:()
windowrule = noinitialfocus,class:(warcraft iii.exe),title:(Warcraft III)
windowrule = move 47% 96%,class:(explorer.exe),title:()
windowrule = opacity 0%,class:(explorer.exe),title:()

If you never played W3Champions before, you may need to verify your Warcraft III installation. Download the legacy launcher from the w3champions GitHub release page, run it inside the prefix, then click Play on the legacy launcher to start Warcraft through Battle.net and verify it.

• Make sure the default Windows version in winecfg is set to Windows 10 (not Windows 11).
• Make sure msedgewebview2.exe is set to Windows 7 (see above).
• If the white screen persists, try killing all lingering wine processes and restarting:

for proc in main Warcraft wine Microsoft edge exe Cr mDNS; do
  pkill "$proc" || true
done

• W3Champions Discord

Happy ladder climbing!

[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

sudo pacman -Syu

sudo pacman -S --needed lib32-mesa vulkan-radeon lib32-vulkan-radeon \
    vulkan-icd-loader lib32-vulkan-icd-loader

sudo pacman -S wine-staging
sudo pacman -S --needed --asdeps giflib lib32-giflib gnutls lib32-gnutls \
    v4l-utils lib32-v4l-utils libpulse lib32-libpulse alsa-plugins lib32-alsa-plugins \
    alsa-lib lib32-alsa-lib sqlite lib32-sqlite libxcomposite lib32-libxcomposite \
    ocl-icd lib32-ocl-icd libva lib32-libva gtk3 lib32-gtk3 gst-plugins-base-libs \
    lib32-gst-plugins-base-libs vulkan-icd-loader lib32-vulkan-icd-loader \
    sdl2-compat lib32-sdl2-compat

yay -S protonplus

pacman -S lutris

curl -L "https://github.com/clemenscodes/W3ChampionsOnLinux/releases/download/proton-ge-9-27/MicrosoftEdgeWebView2RuntimeInstallerX64.exe" \
  --output "$HOME/Downloads/MicrosoftEdgeWebView2RuntimeInstallerX64.exe"

for proc in lutris main Warcraft wine Microsoft edge srt-bwrap exe Cr mDNS; do
  pkill "$proc" || true
done

curl -L "https://downloader.battle.net/download/getInstaller?os=win&installer=Battle.net-Setup.exe" \
  --output "$HOME/Downloads/Battle.net-Setup.exe"

curl -L "https://update-service.w3champions.com/api/launcher-e" \
  --output "$HOME/Downloads/W3Champions_latest_x64_en-US.msi"

rm -rf "$HOME/Games/W3Champions/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/com.w3champions.client"
cp -r /mnt/com.w3champions.client "$HOME/Games/W3Champions/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/com.w3champions.client"

C:
start "" "C:\Program Files\W3Champions\W3Champions.exe"
net stop "Bonjour Service"
net start "Bonjour Service"

for proc in lutris main Warcraft wine Microsoft srt-bwrap exe Cr mDNS; do
  pkill "$proc" || true
done