It appears you cannot play SoT or MC without a MS account and I hate predatory ways Xbox accounts operate (e.g. forcing numbers into your nickname and having you pay to remove it - nickname change being a paid feature is always a 100% demonstration of irreversibly gluttonous greed). My friend likes the type of games though. We played DBD and Lethal Company together, but I’d like something non-horror. The cheaper the better. I looked into Vintage Story, but she’s not down due to it not being on Steam, as she feels like the reviews are curated to inflate positivity (a fair way to feel imo).
Any recommendations based on that?
Not sure about multiplayer, but there are launchers like PollyMC that can be used to play Minecraft on Linux without an account
Fyi PolyMC underwent a hostile takeover of sorts last year; I believe most of the former dev team now works on its fork Prism Launcher.
PolyMC still requires an account, otherwise Microsoft lawyers would pretty soon knock at their door.
And as the other commenter said, you should use Prism Launcher instead.
PollyMC not PolyMC (the controversial one)