Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4.1 update is coming later this month with a healthy helping of new features and bug fixes. Chief among them is support for Linux and Valve's SteamOS / Steam Machines according to a recent blog post from Mike Fricker, lead tool editor for Epic Games.

As outlined in the post, the 4.1 source code has initial support for running and packaging games for Linux and SteamOS. This means that upcoming titles like survival horror game Daylight and sandbox survival game Fortnite could potentially be ported to those platforms.

Elsewhere, the update will provide Epic's Elemental tech demo free of charge for all subscribers through the Marketplace. Fricker admitted it took them a while but they've converted Elemental to match the engine's default system to make it easy to use the asset within end-user projects.

Other new features in the 4.1 update include flying and rolling project templates, a scene outliner folder system, an asset deletion assistant, an undo history window, the ability to jump to connection in graph, a debug histogram visualization and a new experimental feature known as the translation editor. Feel free to check out the blog post for a complete list of new features and bug fixes.

Last month, Epic Games made Unreal Engine 4 available to virtually anyone that wants it via a new subscription model that does away with the hefty upfront fees previously associated with its use. This will no doubt put the engine in the hands of far more developers and that means even more games to play.