Just bought NieR, and am so glad I found this before starting.
I assume this has since been fixed, or was an issue with your setup, as the game installed successfully, and correctly created the folder structure.
I ran into this issue when I installed NieR: Automata to a non-default SteamLibrary folder. The compatdata under ~/.local/share/Steam had a My Documents, but the one under /mnt/games/SteamLibrary did not, creating it fixed the issue. OP's suggestion of creating My Documents in the default wineprefix sounds good.
Just ran into this as well. Lost two hours before I noticed it wasn't saving. :disappointed:
Same problem here. Just installed the game 1 week ago with an updated Steam client. In my case problem might be related to locale, as I had "My Documents" using my local language but not the English one where NieR seems to want to write its data.
Wondering if this is still an issue. I just started playing yesterday (August 2025) with vanilla Proton 9.0-4, installation in non-default storage, no apparent issue with game being saved properly.
proton 9.0-4x1 2025-08
System: Ubuntu 16.04
Issue:
Game can't save anything like settings or save games cause "My Documents" doesn't exist after installation.
it can be solved by going to
~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/compatdata/524220/pfx/dosdevices/c:/users/steamuser
and running mkdir "My Documents"
Possible fix:
Include it in default wine prefix skeleton or
let Steam Play to somehow make it by default after making wine prefix for game.