[Solution at end]
Essentially what the title sais.
I want to give this genre a try, but I also want to use mods. Also, Im on Linux so if there are any extra steps I need to do if I install through lutris/steam (as non-steam game) then I would really appreciate your input. The only reason I am currently considering steam as a non-steam game for the install method is just so I dont fragment my games library too much across multiple platforms/apps. If there is any reason not to install it in steam please also let me know.
Much appreciated!!!
[SOLUTION]
Turns out the torrent I found was just a .rar file of the game with the crack file already there. All I had to do was unpack it, then add it through Lutris as a locally installed .exe. I did have to change the runner to proton-ge as the default wine would not start the game. I also had to go into the prefix it created and apply this fix (steamcommunity link) to get it to stop displaying an annoying pop-up message every 30 minutes or so (yet to test it out, but it should work. Will edit again if it doesnt remove the pop-up message).
Also, strangely enough at least for my experience with pirating games, the in-game mod “store” worked perfectly, and I didn’t need to manually move files to a mods folder, though I’m sure that would also work just as well.
EDIT 2: The workaround to edit the playtime in the game files worked and I no longer get the pop-up message.