How to Fix Redfall Crashing on PC (2026 Guide)

If Redfall keeps crashing on your PC in 2026, the fix is almost always one of three things: an outdated GPU driver, a bad shader cache from a recent update, or the game’s upscaling setting clashing with your hardware. This guide walks through every working fix in order of how often it resolves the crash, including a few the official Bethesda support page still doesn’t mention.

Quick context on the state of the game: Arkane Austin was shut down by Microsoft in May 2024 shortly after releasing Game Update 4, which added offline mode and single-player pausing. The servers are still live as of April 2026, but there will be no further patches — which means any crash you are hitting is on your side (driver, OS, hardware) and not something a developer hotfix will solve. The fixes below still work because they target the player side of the problem.

Start Here: The Two Fixes That Work for Most People

Before touching anything advanced, try these two in order. They solve roughly 80% of reported Redfall PC crashes.

1. Switch to Offline Mode

This is the single biggest change since the 2023 launch. Game Update 4 added a true offline mode that bypasses the matchmaking and always-online handshake that crashes many PCs at the main menu or during fast travel. Launch Redfall, click Play, and on the character selection screen toggle Offline Mode before loading your save. If you were crashing at launch, during map transitions, or when joining a nest, this alone usually fixes it.

2. Update Your GPU Driver (Clean Install)

A plain driver update is not always enough — Redfall is sensitive to leftover shader caches from old drivers. Do a full clean install:

NVIDIA: Download the latest Game Ready Driver from nvidia.com/drivers. During install, click Custom → tick Perform a clean installation.
AMD: Download AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition from amd.com/support. Use the Factory Reset option in the installer.
Intel Arc: Use Intel Arc Control and install the latest WHQL driver, then reboot.

If you want to be thorough, run Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Safe Mode first, then install the new driver on a clean system. This clears every trace of old shader data — which is the actual cause of many “it crashes right after the splash screen” reports on the Redfall subreddit.

Confirm Your System Meets Redfall’s Requirements

Redfall is more demanding than it looks. If you are on a laptop or a pre-2020 build, you may be crashing because you are below minimum — not because anything is broken.

Component	Minimum (1080p, Low)	Recommended (1080p, High)
OS	Windows 10 64-bit	Windows 10/11 64-bit
CPU	Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600	Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
RAM	16 GB	16 GB
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 1070 / AMD RX 580 (8 GB)	NVIDIA RTX 2080 / AMD RX 6800 XT
Storage	100 GB SSD (HDD not supported)	100 GB NVMe SSD
DirectX	DirectX 12	DirectX 12

Two things from this table cause unexpected crashes: Redfall officially does not support HDDs, and it has a hard 8 GB VRAM floor. If you are running a 4 GB or 6 GB card, expect crashes on higher texture settings regardless of what the in-game options let you pick.

Turn Off Upscaling (The Community Fix)

This isn’t on Bethesda’s support page, but it’s the single most consistent community-reported fix on Steam and Reddit. Redfall’s implementation of AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS can crash the game on certain driver and GPU combinations, particularly on RTX 30-series laptops and RX 6000-series cards.

In-game: Settings → Graphics → Upscaling → Off. If you cannot even reach the menu before it crashes, delete the local config so it regenerates with defaults:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Redfall\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

Delete the GameUserSettings.ini file inside that folder (do not delete the whole folder — you will lose keybinds). Relaunch and let the game rebuild settings fresh.

Verify Game File Integrity

A handful of Redfall’s shader and level files are known to corrupt during Windows feature updates or interrupted downloads. Verifying rewrites only the broken ones, so it is fast.

Steam: Right-click Redfall → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files.
Xbox / Microsoft Store / PC Game Pass: Open the Xbox app → Library → Redfall → … (More options) → Manage → Files → Verify and Repair.
Battle.net / Epic users: Not applicable — Redfall was never sold on those platforms.

Disable Overlays

Overlays hook into the game’s DirectX calls and are a major source of crashes in Unreal Engine 4 titles like Redfall. Turn all of them off, not just one:

Steam overlay: Right-click Redfall in your library → Properties → uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game.
Xbox Game Bar: Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar → Off. Also disable Captures → Record what happened.
NVIDIA GeForce Experience / NVIDIA App: Open the app → Settings → toggle In-Game Overlay off.
Discord overlay: Discord → User Settings → Game Overlay → toggle Enable in-game overlay off.
MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner Statistics Server: Close from the system tray before launching — RTSS hooks are a common cause of DX12 crashes.

Unplug Controllers Before Launch

This one is genuinely on the official Bethesda support page and it is weirder than it sounds. Redfall has a known bug where connected third-party controllers (8BitDo, third-party Xbox clones, PS5 DualSense via DS4Windows) can cause a crash during the Arkane splash screen. Unplug the controller, launch the game to the main menu, then reconnect. Official Xbox and PlayStation controllers usually don’t trigger this, but it is worth testing.

Repair DirectX and Visual C++ Redistributables

If the crash throws a d3d12.dll, vcruntime140.dll, or “Fatal error” popup, repairing these runtimes almost always fixes it.

Grab the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer from microsoft.com and run it. This reinstalls the legacy D3DX DLLs Redfall’s launcher still references.
Download the latest Visual C++ Redistributable (x64) from Microsoft’s site and install over the top.
Reboot. Do not skip this step — the DLLs do not fully register until a restart.

Add Redfall to Antivirus and Windows Security Exclusions

Real-time scanning on Redfall.exe causes frame hitches that can escalate to full crashes when the shader compiler kicks in.

Windows Defender: Settings → Privacy & security → Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Manage settings → Exclusions → Add an exclusion → Folder. Add your Redfall install folder (default: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Redfall or the XboxGames path).
Third-party AV (Bitdefender, Norton, Kaspersky, McAfee): Open the AV dashboard → Exclusions or Exceptions → add the Redfall folder and the Redfall.exe binary.

Close Background Apps and Free Up RAM

Redfall is a 16 GB RAM game at minimum spec and it does not play well when Chrome, OBS, Discord, and a browser full of tabs are competing for memory. Open Task Manager → Processes, sort by Memory, and end anything consuming more than 500 MB that you do not need while gaming. Pay particular attention to background updaters: iCloud, Creative Cloud, NVIDIA Broadcast, and any open Electron apps (Slack, Notion, VS Code).

If you are on 16 GB total system RAM, also disable Memory Integrity: Windows Security → Device security → Core isolation details → Memory integrity → Off. It can consume 1 to 2 GB and some users have reported Unreal Engine crashes disappear when it is off.

Update Windows, BIOS, and Chipset Drivers

This is the “it is actually my hardware” category — particularly relevant if you are on AMD Ryzen.

Windows Update: Settings → Windows Update → Check for updates. Install everything, including optional driver updates.
AMD chipset drivers: amd.com/support → search your motherboard chipset (X670, B650, X570, etc.) and install the latest AMD Chipset Drivers. Outdated chipset drivers are a documented cause of Unreal Engine crashes on Ryzen 5000/7000 CPUs.
BIOS / UEFI: Check your motherboard vendor’s support page. If you are on a Ryzen CPU and your BIOS predates 2024, the AGESA version likely has the thermal runaway issue that can look like a game crash.

Disable Fullscreen Optimizations and Set High Performance

Windows’ fullscreen optimizations layer interferes with some DX12 games. To turn it off for Redfall specifically:

Right-click Redfall.exe in the install folder → Properties → Compatibility.
Tick Disable fullscreen optimizations.
Click Change high DPI settings → tick Override high DPI scaling behavior → set to Application.
Apply, then launch.

Also set the Windows power plan to High Performance or Ultimate Performance under Control Panel → Power Options. Laptops default to Balanced, which can throttle the GPU mid-frame and trigger a timeout detection recovery (TDR) crash.

If Nothing Works: Reinstall Cleanly

A full clean reinstall is the last resort, but it clears every edge case that partial verifies miss (stuck shader cache, corrupted DLC files from the Bite Back Edition, half-applied Game Update 4 leftovers).

Uninstall Redfall via Steam or the Xbox app.
Delete any leftover files in the install folder manually (Windows sometimes leaves shader caches behind).
Delete your user config at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Redfall. If you have cloud saves enabled (Steam or Xbox), your progress is safe.
Reinstall. On first launch, the shader compiler will take 5 to 10 minutes — do not panic if the game looks frozen.

Still Crashing? Your Options in 2026

Because Arkane Austin is gone, there is no patch pipeline for new fixes. Your support options are:

Bethesda Support: The help site at help.bethesda.net still processes Redfall tickets and can issue Steam/Xbox refunds in limited cases if you can show the crash is new to you and unresolved after the fixes above. Call 1-866-444-1200 (US, Bethesda Softworks support line) or open a ticket online.
Steam Refund: If Redfall worked when you bought it but stopped after a Windows or driver update, Valve will still consider case-by-case refunds even outside the 2-hour window. Go to help.steampowered.com, choose Redfall, and explain the issue in detail.
Xbox / Microsoft Store Refund: Open support.xbox.com, sign in, and file a refund request with your purchase ID. Microsoft typically refunds PC Game Pass buyers who hit platform-level crashes.
Community fixes: r/Redfall on Reddit and the Steam Community hub still have active users posting hardware-specific workarounds, particularly for Intel 13th/14th-gen CPUs hit by the 2023 to 2024 instability issues.

Most Redfall crashes in 2026 trace back to two root causes: an incompatible upscaler setting and stale GPU shader cache. Run through the first two fixes at the top of this guide first — if those do not clear it, work down the list in order. One of these will get you back in Redfall, Massachusetts.