Game does not start. Crash after splash screen on start up. [Windows 10 - 10th Gen+ Intel CPUs]

Date First Logged: April 6th 2020

Updated: August 10th 2021

Current Status: Resolved in Beta Patch 2.0.8

Issue Description

While Connected to the Internet, after launching the game the splash screen appears as the game launches. This disappears almost immediately and the game does not launch. The WFTO Icon either does not appear on the taskbar or disappears at the same time. 

There is no crash report generated. It appears as though the program was closed by a third-party software.

Resolved in v2.0.8 - Beta

The Beta Branch on Steam currently hosts v2.0.8 of War for the Overworld which addresses this issue with an update to the underlying Unity Engine. Please see Opting in the a Beta Branch.

We are hoping to roll the patch out publically towards the end of the week beginning 9th August 2021.

Verified Workaround - Offline Play

Several users have reported that while they are disconnected from the internet they are able to play the game as normal. While this is certainly not ideal it does allow users to play the game without interruption. To disable your internet connection:

Wifi Connections

1. If available, activate your device's "Airplane Mode" this will temporarily disable your device's wifi adapter
   
2. Otherwise temporarily disable your wifi adapter or disconnect from your wifi network

Wired Connections

1. Unplug your devices cabled connection
2. If this is not convenient then you can disable the appropriate ethernet adapter via control panel.

In the event that this workaround helps you we would still like to know if you have been affected by this issue. Please raise a ticket indicating that you are affected by this issue and the workaround above did or did not help to address your issue. See below Advice for full details.

Cause & Details

The exact cause for this issue is unknown. But it appears to only occur when the device is connected to the internet. We have been made aware that other older Unity Engine games (Dreamfall Chapters) have also been affected by this issue.

• Reports from currently affected users indicate that Windows based laptop with new 10th Generation Intel Core Mobile CPUs, including Razor, Dell and Microsoft Surface brands are affected. 
• As of April 22nd 2021 there has been several reports of desktops being affected. These desktop were using 11th Gen Intel CPUs.
• This issue is present regardless of whether Intel Iris is the only available GPU or an additional discrete Nvidia GPU or EGPU is available.

Our current working theory is that there is an incompatibility with these new Intel CPUs and the Unity Engine version that WFTO is built upon.

This is reinforced by recent investigations into the issue with an affected system. We found that the entire Unity editor would crash when we launched the WFTO project. Then through testing a blank Unity project we confirmed this would affect any game built on Unity 5.4.6f3 which also crashed immediately. It is not the result of anything unique to the WFTO project or its middleware.

This is resolved in WFTO 2.0.8 which uses newer version of the Unity Engine.

Advice

Workaround Works

We believe that all affected users should be able to play the game with the workaround, we have not seen any reports where this workaround did not solve this particular issue.

In any case once you have confirmed the issue we would like you to do the following:

1. Opt into the Debug Branch via Steam
2. Launch the game while disconnected from the internet, exit and copy the output log.
3. Launch the game while connected to the internet, exit and copy the output log.
4. Upload both logs and a DXDiag output in a Bug Ticket

We will use these to further investigate the problem

Workaround Doesn't Work

If the above workarounds do not yield results for this issue we are advising that customers seek a refund from the store they purchased the game from once they have reported the issue to us. In your report please include the following:

• DXDiag output
• System Specification
• Laptop Brand and Model
• Output Log and Launcher Log from WFTO.

If possible we would also like to ask you to check your Windows Event Manager to see if there are any Application Error Events if so please include the report for us.

1. Type Event Viewer into Windows search and then launch the Event Viewer
2. Open the Windows Logs > Application view
3. Look for an Error or Information level event at the time you launched War for the Overworld. It will likely name Source as WFTOGame
4. Click the event and in the right hand menu click "Save Selected Events..."
5. Give it a name and click save.
6. On the Display Information window ensure English (United Kingdom) is enabled. 
   1. Click "Show all available Languages"
   2. From the list check English (United Kingdom)

Once you have submitted your report please feel free to submit a refund to your store. We humbly apologise for the inconvenience and will endeavour to alert you if we find a solution or workaround to your issue.

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Updates

2021-Aug-10 - Updated with details on cause, incoming fix and beta.

2021-Jul-12 - Updated Cause & Details to include recent investigation results.

2021-Apr-22 - Added updated advice if the workaround works.

2020-Nov-06 - Added details of a verified workaround and updated descriptions based on current knowledge.