I do hope you won't take my words offensively.
If you don't have the newest hardware, then AMD cards just work (most probably). The only thing that can be suggested is using a ppa for more recent Mesa packages.
With newer cards, you will need a newer kernel also, meaning non-rolling distros need manual tinkering on the kernel side.
Needing certain packages can happen with any kind of game and any kind of video card (not just AMD), so I don't think a guide is possible on this.
I feel that you didn't define your goals, expectations properly on this topic.

I personally think the wiki here would be a great place to have some how-to's, even if it's sometimes a simple link to a distro-specific wiki page on the topic.

Also, be sure to browse [GamersOnLinux](http://www.gamersonlinux.com/forum/portal/) to find game specific guides, although a lot of their guides tend to be with WINE.

Quoting: GuestUse Debian testing
Don't forget to install the firmware blob, you won't even get the console screen without it on more moderm amd graphics
install amd64 microcode
[...]
What do you mean they would not work "out of the box" though?

That you have to install java for minecraft?
Or that you have to download and install the blobs (which are not part of many distros) similar to windows?
Or that you have to enable cross-architecture support?

That is more or less what I meant. Steam for example does not tell you to install Vulkan or updated Mesa packages from external sources, but often fails silently on game startup. This is very frustrating. Many games will also fail silently or have issues if you do not have libSDL2 installed. This is probably the "ancient library problem" that you mentioned.
In my case, I have to blacklist the radeon module and use amdgpu, but on doing so, the system will crash with a black screen on boot (gotta set some proper kernel parameters for amdgpu). Arguably, this is more of a hardware issue and not a distro thing, but it still gets in your way when setting up for gaming. And none of the many forum posts that I pieced together for this tells a complete story.
When someone installs a Linux system for gaming and "nothing" will work, I do not think many people will be as patient as you or me trying to find out all the extra steps. Your post is a perfect example: install firmware blob, microcode, the Mesa PPA, ... seriously, which casual Linux user would know (or even know how to find out) that?

Cheers

How old is your AMD hardware? I find using recent one to be quite easy, as long as you stick to a rolling distro.

when you say amd it is really important which one. It can make huge difference.

My experience with the rx560 is absolutely out of the box everything just works, I did not had to do absolutely anything with the runtime/native silliness. But on other amd or intel hardware I had found that a steam-native package was required at least on Arch/Manjaro. You also do not need it for nvidia. I do not know for other distros. For vanilla Arch also you need to read the Archwiki and not forget to install packages like the ones needed for Vulkan.

For amd do _not_ install pro drivers. Probably what you already have is the best option. For nvidia you need the nvidia drivers for almost any gaming.

Also you need to install as many fonts as you can find. Many games just require fonts or do not run at all. This is especially important on vanilla Arch.

Strangely I found Vanilla Arch a pretty out of the box and straightforward experience.

If you opt for a different distro some general recommendations:
For amd you need very recent kernel and mesa. Any distro older than 2018 is unacceptable! Even if it is "supported" like Ubuntu 16.04. Ubuntu 18.04 is probably acceptable depending your hardware but is not ideal and maybe installing ppas is recommended. Same goes for example for debian. Debian stable is not acceptable, you need debian testing at least.