I have tried multiple different versions of proton, ge proton, I have tried the EA launcher, and a few black magic incantations. It either runs at 4fps or will not load at all. I have tried everything i can find on protondb that is not an ancient report.
I am running Linux Mint Cinnamon on a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an Intel i5. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd100509-overview-for-thinkpad-x1-carbon-type-20bs-20bt
Yeah I linked that in the op, it has not helped.
It may be worth having a look at the Proton issues github page for it if you’ve not already - though the only report I could see that sounded like your issue was the (currently unresolved) thing about it not running with DXVK, but running with terrible performance in WineD3D - they apparently got it running properly through Lutris with Wine GE 8.26.