We have noticed that some players are unable to launch the game, and we believe this issue may be related to the game's launcher. Despite this, we are providing the following solutions to address this problem. After investigating the issues reported by players, we have confirmed that the following solutions are effective for some players.
Before trying our solutions, please make sure you have tried the following steps:
- Ensure that your Windows system, graphics card drivers, and the Bannerlord game itself are updated to the latest version.
- For information on how to upgrade your Windows system, please refer to the
relevant help documents.
- If you are using Windows 7, make sure that you have installed the additional
service packs for Windows 7.
- Ensure that your game is updated to the latest version. You can check the latest version of the game at the link below. Typically, Steam will automatically update the game to the latest version. If you cannot update to the latest version, please follow the method below to set the Bannerlord update as a high priority and restart the Steam client.
- Make sure your graphics card driver is up-to-date.
NVIDIA -
AMD -
Intel
If you have tried all the steps above, but the game still cannot be launched, please try the following solutions:
1. Manually open the "steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\bin\Win64_Shipping_Client" folder in the game installation directory and manually run "Bannerlord.exe".
Please note that launching the game in this way may not directly call up the Steam overlay in the game. Your status may show that you are in the game, but you cannot call up the in-game Steam overlay.
2. If manually running "Bannerlord.exe" fails and you get the message "Unable to initialize Steam API.", make sure your Steam client is running.
3. If you have confirmed that the Steam client is running but still can't launch the game by manually running "Bannerlord.exe", it means that the game launcher cannot initialize on your computer. We are actively investigating the cause of this error. You can run the DxDiag tool and send us the collected system information to help us solve this problem more quickly. You can follow the instructions in the following post to run the DxDiag tool and send the collected system information via forum private message to
@MArdA TaleWorlds.
4. If you cannot launch the game by manually running "Bannerlord.exe" and your Steam client is running normally, you can try manually running "Bannerlord.Native.exe". However, you need to correctly enter a few lines of commands as prompted to successfully launch the game.
First, you need to locate the "steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\bin\Win64_Shipping_Client" folder in the file explorer, which is usually located in the game installation directory. Then, manually enter "cmd" (excluding quotes) in the address bar and press the Enter key. At this point, the command prompt terminal should appear. Next, enter the command "Bannerlord.exe /singleplayer _MODULES_*Native*SandBoxCore*CustomBattle*Sandbox*StoryMode*_MODULES_ /anticheat" (excluding quotes) and press the Enter key, so the game should be able to start without using the launcher.
5. If you see a prompt about missing .dll files, it means that your software dependency library is not complete, and you can download and install it according to the method in the link.
6. If you receive a crash report, please confirm that our launcher cannot initialize on your computer. You can follow the
instructions here to run the DxDiag tool and send the collected system information via forum private message to
@MArdA TaleWorlds.
We have noticed that sometimes the game cannot correctly access your "My Documents" directory (the game needs to create a folder in it to save archives and game settings, so it needs to ensure that the directory is writable). This is usually related to Microsoft OneDrive. You can try to disable OneDrive and then restart the game to solve this problem. For how to disable OneDrive, please refer to the
relevant documents.
Thank you again for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience caused. We are working hard to resolve the issue of not being able to launch the game.