Experiencing the same issue on an RTX 3060.

Experiencing this issue too.

EndeavourOs
Ryzen 7 5800X
RX 6700 XT

Same issue here on CachyOS

Ryzen 7 5800 X3D
RX 7800XT
32GB RAM
2TB m.2

Proton is up to date on this machine and so CachyOS

Thank you for the suggestion.

Tried with steamdeck=1 launch option and proton 10.0 beta 2. Still freezing.

Want to update and say that when launching with SteamDeck=1 (and not the lowercase variant which I posted above which is incorrect), the game has worked without crashing for the last hour.

I can confirm with SteamDeck=1 and Proton Hotfix it runs for a lot longer but it still seems to crash eventually.

Want to update and say that when launching with SteamDeck=1 (and not the lowercase variant which I posted above which is incorrect), the game has worked without crashing for the last hour.

Game did eventually crash even when using SteamDeck=1 launch option but it did run for longer.

Game still crash with "SteamDeck=1" and 240 FPS. I tried 120 FPS capped and played for 1 hour without issue.
I'm on Arch, Ryzen RX 7800 XT, Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Game keeps freezing and crashing at random moments, causing one to restart it completely, even with "SteamDeck=1". Integrity check of the game files and re-install didn't fix the problem. Drivers and system are fully up-to-date.
System: CachyOS, Ryzen 5700X, RTX 3060.

Has anyone here tried keeping frame cap to 60. This seems to allow me to play for hours. I'm on CachyOS, RTX 3060. 240 crashes.

https://youtu.be/Ox6U8rHI_jo

Try this.

Has anyone here tried keeping frame cap to 60. This seems to allow me to play for hours. I'm on CachyOS, RTX 3060. 240 crashes.

Thanks for the suggestion. It did run for a bit longer it feels like but it froze eventually.

Same here, 9070XT / Ryzen 7 7800X3D on Bazzite. Hard crashes after ~1 hour.

Same issue here, 9800X3D / RTX 5090. Game crashes pretty frequently. I've tried Proton Experimental and Hotfix without success.

same here. the crash or freeze is random, sometimes before title screen, sometimes inside the game. sometimes in 10 minutes and sometimes in 30. the crash wil eventually happen. game needs a patch.

Right now, proton hotfix has changes meant to eliminate the random hangs. I could play 2 hours in a row without any freezing or crashing issues, so those suffering from this should switch to it. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Proton-Versions#proton-hotfix

It's important to point out that hotfix is meant to address issues for specific games and shouldn't be set as your default proton version nor used for random games, as the hotfix channel only sees sporadic use.

Right now, proton hotfix has changes meant to eliminate the random hangs. I could play 2 hours in a row without any freezing or crashing issues, so those suffering from this should switch to it. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Proton-Versions#proton-hotfix

It's important to point out that hotfix is meant to address issues for specific games and shouldn't be set as your default proton version nor used for random games, as the hotfix channel only sees sporadic use.

Not sure proton hotfix actually has fixes for this game, as I switched to it and froze in 20 minutes of play.

Can you share a proton log?

On Sun, Nov 2, 2025, 2:52 AM dmitsuki @.***> wrote:

dmitsuki left a comment (ValveSoftware/Proton#9120)
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9120#issuecomment-3477507499

Right now, proton hotfix has changes meant to eliminate the random hangs.
I could play 2 hours in a row without any freezing or crashing issues, so
those suffering from this should switch to it.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Proton-Versions#proton-hotfix

It's important to point out that hotfix is meant to address issues for
specific games and shouldn't be set as your default proton version nor used
for random games, as the hotfix channel only sees sporadic use.

Not sure proton hotfix actually has fixes for this game, as I switched to
it and froze in 20 minutes of play.

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Can you share a proton log?
…

I can tomorrow, remind me of the launch options to get the log and where it will be saved?

PROTON_LOG=1 %command%

The file will be saved in your home folder

On Sun, Nov 2, 2025, 3:15 AM dmitsuki @.***> wrote:

dmitsuki left a comment (ValveSoftware/Proton#9120)
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9120#issuecomment-3477519345

Can you share a proton log?
… <#m_1841589351437280877_>

I can tomorrow, remind me of the launch options to get the log and where
it will be saved?

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Delayed, but here.

steam-2627260.log

@dmitsuki Which graphics settings were you using when this freeze happened, and was it in a particular chapter/location? Is it random or can you repeat it?

@dmitsuki Which graphics settings were you using when this freeze happened, and was it in a particular chapter/location? Is it random or can you repeat it?

Its random, it's happened so far regardless of graphics settings.

@dmitsuki looks like the issue you are having is similar in its symptoms, but different from the one that got fixed. The one that was fixed was a deadlock that affected the game only, your log shows that your gpu hanged instead. Assuming your computer recovered and you didn't reboot, sudo dmesg should show a log saying the same, if you did reboot then it should be on journalctl -k -b -1.

@hoetz @vagelis84 @nrkowalski have you tried with the more recent hotfix build? Has it made a difference on your end?

My computer doesn't have to recover. When this freeze happens it just freezes the game. I just close it like normally. No other graphical programs are effected, unlike if I crash my GPU by for example reading from some bad memory in vulkan. The game doesn't crash either. It just sits there frozen, with the exact symptoms of a deadlock.

@dmitsuki there are several ways for the gpu to crash, amdgpu must be recovering from this kind as this is part of your proton log

radv/amdgpu: The CS has been rejected, see dmesg for more information (-2).

I will start another play through today or tomorrow using proton hotfix. I will also set it to log, let’s see what it does.

tried latest proton hotfix tonight. It supposed to fix the issue. Crashed/freeze after 15 minutes. i am updating to latest mesa-25.2.6 and check again.
also noticed a strange behaviour.... after freeze and force reboot wine prefix becomes corrupted and i have to create a new one....

@vagelis84 can you run the game with the following launch parameter? PROTON_LOG=1 %command%, this will create a log file in your home folder called steam-2627260.log, if you run into the freeze, upload the file. If it happens to be too big for github you can compress it. Also after the issue happens it might be worth grabbing dmesg log by running this on your terminal sudo dmesg > dmesg.log.

Also give as much information as you can of your system. Distro, cpu, gpu, driver version, kernel version

Played for 3 hours today using proton hotfix. No crashes. Only launch option was PROTON_LOG=1 %command%. Have a log, it's 23.9 megabytes. Don't know how useful it would be to upload so I'll keep it to myself but let me know if you might want it.

My system is gentoo Linux core i5 13500 32gb ddr4 arc b580 12gb. Kernel 6.17.7 Will try again today after system update.
UPDATE! after the system update and new mesa the game wont even run with proton hotfix. i am back to proton ge-10.22

Here is my steam log from my latest play session, which crashed in the middle of a standard mob fight.

steam-2627260.log

Proton Hotfix worked for me pretty well, up until chapter 8.
Now I get full GPU Driver crashes (first the game freezes, then both monitors go dark,recover after 10 to 20 seconds and my whole PC is frozen) and have to recover my PC by force restarting.
I didnt use any launch options, since steamdeck forces lower level of detail and used high graphic settings + fsr on quality
OS: CachyOS x86_64 Kernel: Linux 6.17.7-3-cachyos Display (DEL41D9): 2560x1440 in 27", 165 Hz [External] Display (AW2725DF): 2560x1440 in 27", 360 Hz [External] * DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.1 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (16) @ 4.55 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT [Discrete]

@Vic-SC Can you provide a save file for that location or somewhere near it? The save files should be found in steamapps/compatdata/2627260/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/NINJAGAIDEN4/

@runar-work I know your ask was directed at another user, but in the meantime I have the same problem with the game crashing at the start of Chapter 4. Which is reproducible everytime, if you want to take a look.

I'm using Proton Hotfix with the following launch options LD_PRELOAD="" DXVK_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=0 PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 mangohud game-performance %command%

My system:
Ryzen 7 9800x3d
Nvidia RTX 5090
CachyOS
Kernel: 6.17.7-3-cachyos

I've attached my save files.

NINJAGAIDEN4.zip

@Vic-SC Can you provide a save file for that location or somewhere near it? The save files should be found in steamapps/compatdata/2627260/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/NINJAGAIDEN4/

I have attached them below.

NG4SaveGames.tar.gz

@Vic-SC what driver version are you using and how often are the hangs happening? with your save file I loaded chapter 8 and got to the disco area (which involved a lot of retries) and the game has worked fine so far.

Proton hotfix, ryzen 5700X3D, 9060 XT, linux 6.17.6, mesa 25.2.6

@simifor Im using the most recent mesa version (25.2.6, so same as you).
I just had another crash after around 2 hours (this seems to be the highest amount so far, in general it crashes every 30 to 60 minutes) of gameplay, but this time my display driver recovered.
I have attached my journalctl & dmesg log.

NG4-Journalctl-crashlog.log
NG4-dmesg-crashlog.log

Just in case somebody asks, I dont have any problem with any other games, such as Arc Raiders,Deadlock, Hunt Showdown, WH40k Darktide or WH40K Space Marines 2. In general my gaming sessions last longer then 2 hours.

Edit: after further investigation it seems this is related to a driver regression in mesa 25.2.0 (ring gfx_0.0.0 timeout)

I tested with the provided save file to the end of chapter 9 a few times, but I haven't had any issues with Proton Hotfix and 25.2.6 on RX 9070 so far, so if it's this random it could be tricky. @Vic-SC What was it you found that points to a regression?

I also gave it a try on RTX 3070 with 580.105.8, but I was unable to reproduce any issues in chapter 4, so I'm not sure if it's even reproducible with this GPU. @nrkowalski Can you upload a Proton log from one of your crashes?

@Vic-SC got to veilotl boss and still no hangs on my end. Some people have reported a regression between 25.2.5 AND 25.2.6 causing gpu hangs, so it'd be interesting to know if the issue goes away when you switch to 25.2.5

Does anyone else think this has been fixed? I'm on proton hotfix mesa 25.2.6 and v1.0.2.0 of the game with nvidia 580.105.08 drivers and haven't had a single crash in hours of playing (on release it was regularly crashing min every 15 mins).

i think i find the reason of my crashes. open terminal and give the comand ulimit -n ,it should give you 524288.
after a system update my limits in /etc/security/limits.conf where misconfigured. i have allready 2 hours of gameplay and no crashes at all. i am still testing and send again the results.

Raising the soft file limit (ulimit -n) is bad advice and can have adverse effects elsewhere. Raising the hard file limit (ulimit -Hn) to a high value and not 4096, on the other hand, can help with crashes if the hard file limit was being hit.

sorry i misstyped you are right, the command is ulimit -Hn the hard file limit

i think testing finished today. crash-freeze returned. Yesterday was another day....

@vagelis84 have you noticed that it isn't possible to enable Anti-aliasing anymore if you're using upscaling? What upscaling does battlemage support? I've now played a few hours on DLSS but then I have an RTX card, just waiting for a crash.

@vagelis84 have you noticed that it isn't possible to enable Anti-aliasing anymore if you're using upscaling? What upscaling does battlemage support? I've now played a few hours on DLSS but then I have an RTX card, just waiting for a crash.

@praz01 battlemage supports FSR and XeSS

With latest Proton Experimental it is much better, but still freezes sometimes when loading a new level/area.

indeed new proton experimental looks promising... i am testing...

I spoke too soon. The game will not load chapter 4. It loads, I can hear the audio of the level, but the picture is frozen completely. This is what I see:

This is the proton log I get when the game freezes when I try to load chapter 4:

steam-2627260.log

The issue persists after the last Proton Experiment version.

Clearing the prefix and using the latest Proton Experimental lets me play mission 4 and beyond, but the game still randomly freezes on loading screens, especially during purgatory gates.

It seems that the game only freezes during loading screens now. If I try to quit to the main menu, it's almost guaranteed to freeze, if I load into a purgatory gate it's 50/50, dying and reloading checkpoints, etc.

It seems that the game only freezes during loading screens now. If I try to quit to the main menu, it's almost guaranteed to freeze, if I load into a purgatory gate it's 50/50, dying and reloading checkpoints, etc.

What is your setup (I hadn't checked your logs)? The last proton hotfix has been working pretty well for me on Nvidia/Flatpak Steam on Arch. But I suffer from ADHD so can't play the game for more than 1 hour at a time and have yet to experience any crashes, which were happening almost every 5mins before the hotfix.

It seems that the game only freezes during loading screens now. If I try to quit to the main menu, it's almost guaranteed to freeze, if I load into a purgatory gate it's 50/50, dying and reloading checkpoints, etc.

What is your setup (I hadn't checked your logs)? The last proton hotfix has been working pretty well for me on Nvidia/Flatpak Steam on Arch. But I suffer from ADHD so can't play the game for more than 1 hour at a time and have yet to experience any crashes, which were happening almost every 5mins before the hotfix.

Arch Linux
Latest Proton experimental and GE (same issue on both)
Nvidia RTX 5090
nvidia-open-dkms 580.105.08-5
Ryzen 7 7800 X3D

Game used to run fine for me on Plasma, but for some reason on Hyprland for me, I'm stuck on a bluescreen while I hear the audio in the background.
NixOS Hyprland
Latest Experimental and GE 10-25 and Proton 9
NVIDIA 4090

Never mind. I started a new game, and it froze twice on the first chapter. It's still broken.

Ok, so it seems to have been an issue with the scheduler I was using on the new kernel I compiled. I beat the game on kernel linux617-tkg-pds 6.17.8-273 no issues. Linux 6.18.2-273-tkg-bmq froze the game a lot on loading screens with really high CPU usage. I started a new game with Linux 6.18.2-273-tkg-bore, and that has been completely fine 5 chapters in. I will report again if I manage to complete the whole game with no crashes.

TL;DR: the game does not like the BMQ scheduler, but seems fine with BORE and PDS.

Ok, so it seems to have been an issue with the scheduler I was using on the new kernel I compiled. I beat the game on kernel linux617-tkg-pds 6.17.8-273 no issues. Linux 6.18.2-273-tkg-bmq froze the game a lot on loading screens with really high CPU usage. I started a new game with Linux 6.18.2-273-tkg-bore, and that has been completely fine 5 chapters in. I will report again if I manage to complete the whole game with no crashes.

TL;DR: the game does not like the BMQ scheduler, but seems fine with BORE and PDS.

Thank you so much for really putting it thought its paces. Glad to know that it'll work when I finally get around to playing it again.

Ok, I beat the whole game with no crashes on the following setup:

Proton Experimental
Arch linux
Linux 6.18.2-273-tkg-bore
RTX 5090
nvidia-open-dkms 590.48.01-1
Ryzen 7 7800 X3D
32GB of RAM
Launch commands: gamescope -f -h 2160 -r 240 -- bash -c 'gamemoderun %command%'
in game settings: 4k maxed out with DLSS and dynamic resolution enabled.

All cutscenes played, no crashing whatsoever, no stuttering. The only issue I do have, and I'm not sure if it's a Linux issue as it might be an issue on Windows as well, is that if I have my wireless keyboard connected (Keychron K2), the game will not recognise any controller. I'm using a PS5 controller with Steam input disabled as I want to have the PS5 glyphs.

To get my controller working properly, I start the game, unplug my keyboard and controller, then plug in my controller, and finally plug my keyboard back in. Both my keyboard and controller work fine after I do this, but I need to do this every time I start the game. If unplug the Keychron and plug in a plain wired keyboard in its place, I do not get this issue. Not sure if this is a Linux issue or just an issue with the game, but I'm going to mention it in case someone else experiences this issue.

2 more playthroughs and zero crashes. This has been resolved as far as my experience goes.

2 more playthroughs and zero crashes. This has been resolved as far as my experience goes.

Thank you for persevering with this. What was your eventual stable setup/configuration for the game?