Red Dead 2 PC Crashes On Startup, Rockstar Addressing The Issue

Update: Following Red Dead 2's rocky PC launch, which included freezing and crashing for many players, Rockstar Support's Twitter has acknowledged the ongoing Red Dead 2 PC issues in a tweet stating the team is "actively working to resolve them."

On November 5, Rockstar pushed an update meant to address the PC crashing issues related to Red Dead Redemption 2 and also the Rockstar Games Launcher. Rockstar pushed another update today, called RDR2 Title Update 1.14. According to its patch notes, the update includes "Improvements to address issues that resulted in Red Dead Redemption 2 crashing due to Anti-Virus software" on PC.

Original story follows...

Red Dead Redemption 2 is out on PC, but startup errors are giving some players trouble. One editor at GameSpot experienced several back-to-back crashes in Red Dead 2 on PC while trying to load into the campaign and during the opening cutscene. According to Reddit, one of the most common errors players are receiving states, "Red Dead Redemption 2 exited unexpectedly. Please click Retry below to enter the game again, or click Safe Mode to launch the game with reduced graphics settings. If you continue to have problems playing the game, please contact Rockstar Games Customer Service at https://support.rockstargames.com," followed by options to exit out, retry, and re-launch with safe mode enabled. Some users have even reported issues with the Rockstar Games Launcher.

If you're among those experiencing issues, we have a potential solution to fix Red Dead 2 crashes. At the very least, it worked for one of us here at GameSpot. [Update: Rockstar has released an update for the Rockstar Games Launcher, and among the patch notes is a mention of a fix for some of the problems players have been encountering. It's unclear if this will fix them all, but make sure your launcher is up to date if you're having issues.]

The Red Dead community on Reddit is currently compiling a list of PC launch issues with some community-sourced troubleshooting tips, including disabling your antivirus. GameSpot has not verified the effectiveness of the methods suggested on Reddit as of yet, and would recommend players also consult the official Rockstar Games support site, especially the page setup for the "exited unexpectedly" error. Rockstar recommends players having issues with Red Dead 2 on PC try running the game as an administrator or updating their graphics drivers.

Other launch issues players have reported on Reddit include audio problems, issues with the Rockstar Games Launcher, and FPS drops. For the FPS drops, the Red Dead community on Reddit suggests switching graphics API from Vulkan to DirectX12 for Nvidia users, but many in the comments warn that this doesn't work. GameSpot recommends proceeding with caution and waiting for Rockstar's official support line to address the issue.