• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Titanfall 2
• Steam AppID of the game: 1237970

steam-1237970.log

System Information

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
• Video driver version: Mesa 26.1.3 (RADV)
• Kernel version: 7.0.12-arch1-1
• Link to full system information report as Gist https://gist.github.com/: https://gist.github.com/Rezeppa/8bc21b9a66bc702082c3967ae6ab4577
• Proton version: Proton Experimental / Proton GE Latest

I confirm:

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

Symptoms

Titanfall 2 permanently deadlocks/freezes the exact moment it reaches the main menu.

• Using -nosound completely bypasses the freeze and allows the game to load perfectly.
• Bypassing EasyEffects, modifying PipeWire buffer latency, forcing stereo audio, disabling Fsync, and preventing Bluetooth microphone autoswitching do NOT fix the freeze.
• Injecting native Microsoft XAudio2 .dll files via protontricks does NOT fix the freeze.

The deadlock is specifically occurring inside Proton's PulseAudio translation driver ( winepulse.drv ). When the game's Miles Sound System ( mileswin64.dll ) attempts to
establish a connection with PipeWire through winepulse.drv , the audio thread infinitely deadlocks and freezes the engine.

Reproduction

1. Launch Titanfall 2 on an Arch Linux / Wayland system running PipeWire.
2. Wait for the EA/Respawn intro videos to finish.
3. The game will permanently freeze on the loading screen right as the main menu tries to render.

The Fix / Workaround:
By putting the following in the Steam Launch Options:
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winepulse.drv=d;xaudio2_7=d;xaudio2_8=d;xaudio2_9=d" %command% -window -noborder

This forces Proton to completely bypass the broken winepulse.drv layer and use the bare-metal Linux ALSA driver, while simultaneously forcing the game to fall back to
the highly stable dsound engine. With these specific overrides applied, the game instantly loads to the main menu with flawless audio.