"unable to launch game" and many other errors

[Lonely Donkey Kong]

Looks like this is something common right now, but I bought RDR2 and have been struggling to get it installed, running, etc. In 2 days I have seen the game actually boot ONE time, and then it immediately crashed and refused to boot again.

I usually get a mix of "The Rockstar Games Launcher failed to initialize!", "The Rockstar Games Launcher exited unexpectedly", or "Unable to launch game, please try reinstalling the game."

I have reinstalled the game, reinstalled the launcher, rebooted, run everything as admin, changed the compatibility tabs, etc.

Is this something that could be a server side issue still (like the 7002 error), or is this game this flaky?

My laptop more than meets the specs (Win 11, 64gb, core i9-13900, 4070, etc), don't have issues with other games (Although I haven't tried other Rockstar games)

I have a Steam Deck but I feel like that's not the optimal way to play. It seems like maybe refunding it and just picking up the console version cheap is the best option...

[Conforama]

I have the same problem

[88]

same problem, support told me to reinstall game, reinstall c++ and .net :D
I did it but still can't play because game crash after launch

[EagleUA]

Same here, but in my case I only have the 'Error: unable to launch game, try reinstalling the game', nothing else

[tinyau]

I'm having the same issue. only "Error: unable to launch game, try reinstalling the game" is shown when tried to launch RDR2.

[tinyau]

Problem is fixed after run the Rockstar Games Launcher as admin.

[rizzy17aksu]

same thing happens to me i don't know how to fix it ive tried everything and every way

[KaneKool]

Install Rockstar Launcher, launch game from Rockstar launcher, not need to run as admin. In this way with no problem with game.