Red Dead Redemption 2’s shaky start on PC is due to launcher issues

Red Dead Redemption 2 is suffering from the sins of the Rockstar Games Launcher, but the developer has issued a troubleshooting guide and a patch that addresses the reported roadblocks (via Eurogamer). 

In some cases, the launcher won’t even start the game, which is mighty problematic. When players click ‘play’ on the Rockstar Games Launcher, it triggers an error that says, ‘Red Dead Redemption 2 exited unexpectedly.’ Complaints have mounted up and the developer has written a troubleshooting guide to go with the new patch for the dedicated software. Update v1.0.9.164 sorted the preload decryption problems specifically and has solved a host of other errors.

An update has been made to Rockstar Games Launcher. For release notes please see: https://t.co/hCyU63iRcc

— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) November 5, 2019

Or has it? Players are continuing to report problems with the PC port and Rockstar Games is theorising that the cause is out-of-date graphics drivers. The community has bandied together like a motley crew of cattle herders and formed a launch issues megathread on the PCRedDead subreddit. A few recommend disabling any antivirus software before starting up the game, and some advise updating the BIOS. Others have manually updated their Windows operating system and found the game to work just fine. Those in the throes of desperation have been unplugging their hard drives, and thankfully that seems to have fixed their woes. 

As for the ‘activation required’ launch error, players say you’ll need to log out and log in to the Rockstar Games Launcher for it to recognise a valid authentication. Honestly, this is a lot of work for a launcher that released two months ago. However, Rockstar Games has responded very quickly to the reports; after all, Red Dead Redemption on PC came out only yesterday. Fingers crossed the problems are resolved and players will be able to leap head-over-spurred-heels into the re-release.