try it with
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command%

in the launch options

@gusthe Thank you, that worked...
Anyway I'll leave this bug report open so that in the future PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 won't be needed.

I can confirm that PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 is needed for this game.
On my system it even launches without this option, but it then crashes after one or two minutes playtime. I had no crashes with PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1.

OS: Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 620
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Driver Version: Mesa 18.3.0-devel - padoka PPA

I had the same issue: game would start but close abruptly within two minutes. Until then everything seemed buttery smooth. With esync disabled i have rather bad performance and crackling sound.

I created a log with +esync,+server,+pid,+timestamp,+seh while running with esync enabled. It may help debugging (may be interesting for you, @zfigura ?):

steam-239160-esync.log.tar.gz

• Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (64 bit 4.15.0-33-generic)
• GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2 (396.54)
• Proton Beta 3.7-4

System information from steam

It runs out of open file descriptors; please make sure you have your limits raised as per the instructions here.

@zfigura I've already raised the limits by modifying the systemd config files.
ulimit -Hn says 1048576

EDIT: I've tried again without PROTON_NO_ESYNC and now it works (maybe an update to proton fixed it)!

I increased the file descriptors and played without problems through the prologue and a big part of the first chapter... very good performance (some sluggishes when new shaders came into play, but nothing out of the ordinary) :tada:.

Thanks a lot for the support, zfigura, it's very much appreciated!!

I can confirm, it is running with PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command%.

Without it, it crashes within seconds the first level started. The odd thing was, every time I restarted the game I got some seconds more into the level. I ddin't continue this after 4 attempts, as this will lead to nothing, I suppose.

Works out of the box for me. Performance is pretty good (60 FPS @ highest settings).

Systeminfo: https://gist.github.com/NoXPhasma/9ed85e6b0602b656c812acd013ee121f
Distribution: Linux Mint 19
Proton: 3.16-4

This game also uses XAudio2, I didn't had any issues with it and now with Proton 3.16-5 i's using FAudio and also no issues. If anyone of you experience audio issues, try to use Proton 3.16-5 or above.

Seems to work ok with Mesa 21.3.5, kernel 5.16.11, Proton 7.0
ulimit -Hn says 65536 so maybe the issues mentioned before by others would only appear after much longer session?

Seems to work ok with Mesa 21.3.5, kernel 5.16.11, Proton 7.0 ulimit -Hn says 65536 so maybe the issues mentioned before by others would only appear after much longer session?

Kernel 5.16 is fsynced 😯
The issue was related to esync.