Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
• Steam AppID of the game: 813780

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
• Video driver version: NVIDIA 580.159.03
• Kernel version: 7.0.0-22-generic
• Link to full system information report as Gist: (attach Steam System Information and Steam Runtime Diagnostics)
• Proton version: Reproduced with Proton Experimental, Proton Hotfix, and Proton 9.0

I confirm:

• [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Symptoms

The game worked normally until the June 2, 2026 update.

Steam updated AoE2 DE to BuildID 23530824. After the update the game no longer launches.

The game starts through Steam and Proton, creates multiple processes, then exits after approximately 10-15 seconds without reaching the main menu.

Other Proton games continue to function correctly.

The issue has been reproduced on two separate Linux systems:

• Ubuntu 26.04
• Arch Linux

The crash occurs regardless of Proton version tested.

Relevant Proton log entries:

EXCEPTION_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION exception (code=c000001d)

code=c000001d (EXCEPTION_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION)
addr=0000000142BE7700

code=c000001d (EXCEPTION_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION)
addr=0000000142BE7703

wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0000000000000000

The crashing executable is AoE2DE_s.exe.

Reproduction

1. Install Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.
2. Update to BuildID 23530824.
3. Launch the game through Steam.
4. Proton starts normally.
5. Game exits after several seconds without showing the main menu.