I wouldn’t say we’re over-reliant on Steam, but maybe on Valve to some extent.

If Valve would suddenly stop all their work on/around Linux, that’d certainly affect Proton and also things like the open AMD GPU drivers. Sure, others would likely continue their work (it’s not like they’re doing it all alone now anyway), but Valve certainly brings a lot of expertise and also commercial interest.

Would be awesome if you’d share your solution for the next person encountering the same issue :)

What exact GPU model? Kernel version? Have you tried it with SELinux disabled temporarily?

While I agree that Proton is awesome, running a game originally released for PS3/360 with enhanced visuals at 60 FPS (instead of 30ish) on a 1660 Ti is hardly anything to write home about.

To be honest I think most issues Intel Arc has under Linux just come down to the tiny user base. Intel provides solid Linux support, I’d say it’s probably on par with AMD.

Proton and such will have more incompatibilities, as will Mesa. You can report issues with specific games in Valve’s proton repository. Sometimes someone will have a workaround for you, and usually issues will be fixed eventually, especially if you’re willing to test changes and provide feedback.