[Ubuntu 22.04] Paradox games wouldn't launch from Steam, unless binary launched from directly from console, but then Steam instance is not found

[mcdonalds burger flipper]

I have downloaded Steam on my Linux Ubuntu 22.04 machine and installed Victoria 3 and Europa Universalis 4. Installation of the steam and the games went smoothly, but I am unable to launch the game from the Steam user interface by pressing play. The problem persists for both Paradox games I have, I tried RDR2 and CS2 and couple other games and they launch fine, and able to detect my Steam account in-game and etc. Pressing makes the button blue, then it says 'Cancel', 'Stop' and then button turns green again and it says 'Play' again as if the game was never launched and nothing happens and no error is thrown.

So I decided to run binary directly from

~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Victoria 3/binaries/victoria3

and the game does launch and runs well, however the game does not find my steam instance and I am effectively playing offline and have no DLCs. The console does provide the issue:

[S_API] SteamAPI_Init(): SteamAPI_IsSteamRunning() did not locate a running instance of Steam.
dlopen failed trying to load:
/home/jokubasz/.steam/sdk64/steamclient.so

so appearantely it seems that the game does not point to correct path of steamclient shared library.

sudo find / -name "steamclient.so" 2>/dev/null

gave me

/home/jokubasz/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/linux32/steamclient.so
/home/jokubasz/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steamclient.so
/home/jokubasz/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/linux64/steamclient.so

so these libraries do exist, but the game points to a wrong location.

Can it be fixed? Note that other games are working fine for me, as I have tried few others.

 

[AndrewT]

I know of two possible causes to this problem on Linux.

One is if you've used the Snap or Flatpack installs of Steam, which do not work well with our games. You need to use the native Linux client from Valve:
http://store.steampowered.com/about/
"Install Steam Now"

The other is an issue with Steam when you have Proton installed; Steam sometimes thinks you have the game on WIndows not Linux so installs the wrong version. If you see victoria3.exe (ie the Windows executable) in your Steam folder for this game, that is the problem!
You can get past that as described here:

Chapter III package might (temporarily) bork Linux compatibility

Hello fellow Conquerors, Adulterers, Scholars and Witches, as the title says, I merrily played some CK3, purchased the Chapter III DLC bundle on Steam, tried to play again, and the game crashed before even opening the launcher. I'm running the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

All the best!