Days Gone PC – Crashing at Startup – Game won’t Launch – How to fix

The PC release of Days Gone has to be one of the most anticipated events in the world of gaming in 2021. Now that the game has finally launched, PC gamers from all over the world are rejoicing. I mean, just a few years ago, PlayStation exclusives on PC was something that a lot of PC gamers used to the dream of. But knew very well that it is never going to happen. Now look at the scenario. We got Horizon Zero Dawn last year and now Days Gone.

The thing about of AAA games nowadays is, performance issues are a very common factor in them. Especially in the ones that are ported from console to the PC platform. Horizon Zero Dawn and Detroit Become Human had their fair share of problems at launch. The same is the case with Days Gone. While some players are reporting on the forums that the game is constantly crashing for them. For some the Days Gone won’t even launch on their PCs. While we wait for Bend Studios to release a patch, here are a few steps that you can try to fix the issues.

Days Gone PC – Crashing at Startup – Game won’t Launch – How to fix

Note : The PC version of Days Gone does not support any other OS other than Windows 10, that too, the 64-bit version. So if you have a different OS installed then you are out of luck here. Neither this game will run on Windows 7, nor will it run on Windows 8.1 or Linux. I still see a lot of outrage regarding the fact that the developers have stopped releasing games for Windows 7. But let me tell you, Microsoft has ended their support for Windows 7 almost one and a half years ago. Which means, in order for the devs to make games for Windows 7, they would have to work on that unsecure OS too. This is a risk not a lot of companies are willing to take these days. Just switch to Windows 10. It’s better.

How to fix the crashes

I know, this is one step that gets recommended in every single performance guide of mine. But I have a reason for that. I scroll through the Steam discussions pages, forums, and Reddit of different games almost twice a day. And you would be surprised to know how many people don’t update their graphics drivers. So keep them updated, because that way you would be able to avoid any sort of Direct3D or DirectX errors.

If by any chance you are witnessing random crashes in Days Gone despite having updated drivers and OS, then chances are it is being caused by an overclocking application or utility running in the background. A lot of games have been suffering from crashes lately due to applications like MSI Afterburner or Zotac firestorm. I have personally experienced this issue while running an overclocked RTX 3070. So it is best to stay on the safe side and run your graphics card on default speeds.

If you are getting errors like “vcruntime140_1.dll missing” or “MSVCP140.dll was not found”. The go ahead and install the latest version of Visual C++ redistributable, as there’s a chance it hasn’t been installed correctly.

I would recommend that you go and disable Steam Overlay for Days Gone. Go to your Steam Library and right-click on Days Gone. Select Properties and then click on the General tab. Untick “Enable Steam Overlay while in-game” and restart Steam

How to fix the launch issues

If you have purchased Days Gone on Epic Games Launcher then you can repair the game by verifying the in-game files. Here is how to do it :

  • Open Epic Launcher
  • Go to your Library
  • Take your mouse pointer on Days Gone
  • Click on the Settings icon(…) beside the Launch icon
  • Click on Verify
  • Restart the launcher after the process is completed

But, if you have Days Gone on your Steam account then verify the in-game files of the game to check whether your system is missing any files that might be causing the game to crash or freeze:

  • Go to your Steam Library
  • Right click on Days Gone
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Local Files tab
  • Click on Verify integrity of game files…

The entire process might take a while as Days Gone is almost 70 GB in size. So be patient and avoid doing heavy tasks during this period.

The executable file of Days Gone might be getting silently quarantined by some antivirus software without you having any idea about it, preventing the game from launching. In that case, you might need to disable Real-Time Scanning function or Real-Time Protection function of your Anti-virus to play. If you do not want to completely disable the software, then you will have to add the .exe of Days Gone on the Exceptions list of your AV Software.

Another thing you can do is, avoid launching the game via Steam once and try to run the executable file or .exe of Days Gone as admin, directly from the installation directory. Just head over to the installation folder of Days Gone > Right-Click on the .exe file > Go to Compatibility tab > Check “Run this program as an administrator”. And that is all you need to do.

Finally, if none of the fixes mentioned above work for you, then you have no other choice but to re-install the game or to wait for patches from Bend Studio.


That’s all folks!

Last Updated on May 17, 2021

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