Darkest Dungeon 2 keeps crashing on PC
A Darkest Dungeon 2 screenshot from Epic Games Launcher

Darkest Dungeon 2 is a roguelike road trip of the damned. It is about hope, grit and determination. If Darkest Dungeon 2 crashing on your PC, don’t worry! The good news is you’ve come to the right place, and you should be able to fix this issue easily after reading this article.

System requirements of Darkest Dungeon 2 for Windows PC

Make sure that your PC meets the system requirements of Darkest Dungeon 2 first. If you don’t know the system requirements of the game, just take a quick glance at the table below:

System requirementsMinimumRecommended
OS:Windows 10Windows 10
Processor:AMD Athlon X4 | Intel Core i5 4460i7 6700k
Memory:8 GB RAM16 GB RAM
Graphics:Nvidia GTX 950 | AMD R7 370/
DirectX:Version 10/
Storage:6 GB available space10 GB available space
Darkest Dungeon 2 system requirements

You may need to upgrade your PC first if your PC fails to meet the system requirements of the game.

If it keeps crashing on your powerful PC, just read on and try the fixes below.

Try these fixes

Whether the game crashes on startup or crashes in the middle of the game, you can find a fix to try in this article. You don’t need to try them all. Just work your way down the list until you find the one that works for you.

  1. Verify integrity of game files
  2. Update your graphics driver
  3. Install the latest game patch
  4. Disable overlays
  5. Temporarily disable anti-virus software
  6. Repair corrupted system files
  7. Perform a clean boot

Verify integrity of game files

Game file corruption often lead to game crashing issue. If some important game files are missing or corrupted, the game would crash. But don’t worry, you can verify and repair game files easily in Epic Games Launcher:

  1. Launch Epic Games Launcher and go to your Library.
  2. Click on the three dots under the Darkest Dungeon 2 game tile and select Verify.
    verify game files in Epic Games Launcher

Depending on the size of the game files, it may take some time to verify all your game files.

When the verifying process complete, launch Darkest Dungeon 2 to see if it crashes again. If this issue persists, try the next fix, below.

Update your graphics driver

Graphics driver is essential to the functioning of video games. If Darkest Dungeon 2 keeps crashing on your PC, it’s likely that you have the corrupted or outdated graphics driver on your PC. So you should update your drivers to see if it fixes the game crashing issues.

You can update your graphics driver manually: first go to the manufacturer’s download page (AMD / NVIDIA), then search your model and download the correct driver installer. But if you don’t have the time, patience or skills to update the driver manually, you can do it automatically with Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to be troubled by the wrong driver you would be downloading, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing. Driver Easy handles it all.

  1. Download and install Driver Easy.
  2. Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
  3. Click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system.

    (This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All. If you’re not ready to buy the Pro version, Driver Easy offers a 7-day free trial which includes access to all the Pro features such as high-speed download and one-click install. You won’t be charged anything until your 7-day trial has ended.)


  4. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
The Pro version of Driver Easy comes with full technical support. If you need assistance, please contact Driver Easy’s support team at support@drivereasy.com.

Install the latest game patch

The developer of Darkest Dungeon 2 releases regular game patches to fix bugs and improve gaming performance. It’s possible that a recent patch has caused the game crash issue, and that a new patch is required to fix it.

If a patch is available, it will be detected by Epic Games Launcher, and the latest game patch will be automatically downloaded and installed when you launch the game.

Launch Darkest Dungeon 2 again and check if the this fix works. If it didn’t work, or there was no new game patch available, move on to next fix, below.

Disable overlays

Overlays are handy. However, sometimes they would interfere with the game and even block the game files, which may trigger the game crashing issue.

If you’re using apps with overlay features (e.g. Nvidia GeForce Experience, Discord, Twitch, etc.), make sure you’ve disabled the in-game overlay in those apps feature.

Run the game and see if the it crashes again. If this fix doesn’t work, try the next fix, below.

Temporarily disable anti-virus software

Some 3rd party antivirus software may interfere with game files. The game will crash when some important game files are blocked by those antivirus software.

Try adding both the game folder and Epic Games Launcher as an exception to your third-party antivirus application. If necessary, temporarily disable the 3rd party antivirus software before playing the game.

Run Darkest Dungeon 2 to see if the game crashes after you disabled the anti-virus software on your PC.

If this fix didn’t work, try the next fix to perform a clean boot.

Repair corrupted system files

Windows system file corruption sometimes will also crash the game. If you’ve played PC games for a long time, you may have already known that even a missing or corrupted .dll file (dynamic link libraries) would cause a game to crash.

If you’d like to repair all the corrupted system files ASAP, try using Fortect, a powerful tool that specializes in Windows repair.

Fortect will compare your current Windows OS to a brand new and functioning system, then remove and replace all the damaged files with fresh Windows files and components from its continuously updated online database that contains vast repository of system services & files, registry values, dynamic link libraries and other components of a fresh Windows installation.

After the repair process is done, Your PC’s performance, stability and security will be restored and improved.

To repair corrupted system files using Fortect, follow the steps below:

  1. Download and install Fortect.
  2. Open Fortect and click Yes to run a free scan of your PC.
  3. Fortect will scan your computer thoroughly. This may take a few minutes.
  4. Once done, you’ll see a detailed report of all the issues on your PC. To fix them automatically, click START REPAIR. This requires you to purchase the full version. But don’t worry. If Fortect doesn’t solve the issue, you can request a refund within 60 days.

Perform a clean boot

Darkest Dungeon 2 will crash when there’s a certain app conflicting with the game. If you don’t know which app is conflicting with the game, just follow the steps below to perform a clean boot, and you’ll find it out. Here’s how to do it:

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R at the same time to open the Run Dialog. Type msconfig and press Enter to open the System Configuration window.
    msconfig-win-10
  2. Navigate to the Services tab, check Hide all Microsoft services and then click Disable all.
    system configuration
  3. Select the Startup tab and click Open Task Manager.
    system configuration
  4. On the Startup tab in Task Manager, for each startup item, select the item and then click Disable.
    system configuration
  5. Go back to the System Configuration window and click OK.
    system configuration
  6. Click Restart to restart your PC.
    system configuration

Restart your PC and launch Darkest Dungeon 2 to check if the game crashes again. If not, open the System Configuration window again to enable services and applications one by one until you find the problematic software.

After enabling each services, you need to restart your PC to apply the changes.

Once you find out the problematic software that crashes Darkest Dungeon 2, you can uninstall it to avoid game crashing issues in the future.

If the crashing issue reappears after you disabled all the 3rd party apps and services, try reinstalling Darkest Dungeon 2.

Normally, after reinstalling the game, you’ll be able to fix the crashing issue.

Tips:

If these common fixes didn’t help you fix the Darkest Dungeon 2 crashing issue, you can also try investigating Windows crash logs to analyze and troubleshoot the causes of the crash. For more details, see the article: How to view crash logs in Windows 10.


Hopefully, one of the fixes above helped you fix the Darkest Dungeon 2 crashing issue. Feel free to drop a line in the comment area below if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for reading!

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