"Game won't start"? Try this

[StackzGaming]

PROBLEM

When you try to launch Death Stranding from Steam, nothing happens. Just goes back to the "Play" button.

POSSIBLE CAUSE

I've noticed a pattern with recent Steam games where they seem to want VCRUNTIME140_1.dll be loaded in the folder. This is a development (i.e. not production) version of Visual C, so I'm not sure why this is happening so much more frequently. But it's annoying.

HOW TO CONFIRM

Browse out to the folder and run ds.exe as Administrator (right click). If you get a "missing VCRUNTIME" error, you know it's the issue.

You can download it from dll-files.com or other places through search. Load that into the folder, then try running Death Stranding, and it should work (assuming this was the only problem).

[󠀡󠀡󠀡⁧⁧the.jester]

Sounds like you don't have the relevant runtimes installed. They can either be installed from the Steamworks Shared folder, or downloaded from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads
(download and install both x86 and x64 versions)

No need to download random dll's off of the internet.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by the.jester:

No need to download random dll's off of the internet.

Never do that !!!

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by the.jester:

Sounds like you don't have the relevant runtimes installed. They can either be installed from the Steamworks Shared folder, or downloaded from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads
(download and install both x86 and x64 versions)

No need to download random dll's off of the internet.

Normally I would agree - as a developer myself.

HOWEVER...my computer has every single Visual C installed. The game specifically squawks for VCRUNTIME140_1.dll - which is a development mode DLL that generally means it wasn't published from VIsual Studio correctly with the right pointer. It doesn't matter - I still get the error.

dll-files is a safe site. The DLL has been run through every scanner known to exist.

What I'd rather see is whichever developers fixing the root cause and actually targeting the right Visual C to avoid the issue in the first place.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡⁧⁧the.jester]

Originally posted by mistermarcus:

Originally posted by the.jester:

Sounds like you don't have the relevant runtimes installed. They can either be installed from the Steamworks Shared folder, or downloaded from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads
(download and install both x86 and x64 versions)

No need to download random dll's off of the internet.

Normally I would agree - as a developer myself.

HOWEVER...my computer has every single Visual C installed. The game specifically squawks for VCRUNTIME140_1.dll - which is a development mode DLL that generally means it wasn't published from VIsual Studio correctly with the right pointer. It doesn't matter - I still get the error.

dll-files is a safe site. The DLL has been run through every scanner known to exist.

What I'd rather see is whichever developers fixing the root cause and actually targeting the right Visual C to avoid the issue in the first place.

Doesn't prove anything. If it was the case as you posted, far, far more people would be having problems.

If it isn't installed correctly, that suggests your Windows installation is broken in some way.

[cindysaunders]

I have the same problem. I tried all the above solutions. Right clicking on DS.exe and running as administrator gives no error message. Launching from Steam gives "preparing to launch" message and nothing happens except Steam notes that I have played the game for 1 minute. I have updated Stream, added DS.exe to Norton's list of safe files, downloaded new Nvidia driver. I also uninstalled and redownloaded and reinstalled Death Stranding. I have done a "clean" Windows 10 reboot. Any other suggestions?

[Laptop]

Really there has to be a "normal" way to fix this, downloading random DLL files off the Internet and placing them in your Windows folder really isn't good practice.

[Elmar]

Same problem. Please, a valid solution...thanks

[DJNate2K]

same here, i just bought game yesterday and i tried everything above and i got nothing. im considering getting a refund at this point.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by the.jester:

Originally posted by mistermarcus:

Normally I would agree - as a developer myself.

HOWEVER...my computer has every single Visual C installed. The game specifically squawks for VCRUNTIME140_1.dll - which is a development mode DLL that generally means it wasn't published from VIsual Studio correctly with the right pointer. It doesn't matter - I still get the error.

dll-files is a safe site. The DLL has been run through every scanner known to exist.

What I'd rather see is whichever developers fixing the root cause and actually targeting the right Visual C to avoid the issue in the first place.

Doesn't prove anything. If it was the case as you posted, far, far more people would be having problems.

A simple search on here yields tons of people with the same symptoms. So yeah

[StackzGaming]

Note that I said "possible cause" because it may or may not the cause - and that's why I shared "how to confirm" to know if THIS is the problem.

But there are likely many reasons.

Incompatible video card is one I've seen (the developer should have coded a proper error message if this was the case),

If it helps, I have an RTX 2080. I suspect any four or five-digit nVidia card should work using the latest drivers. i7-9700 for the CPU. 32GB of RAM.

Don't know enough about AMD and strongly doubt the Intel Integrated will work.

[Elmar]

I have two computers, the first works, the other doesn't. Same operating system (Windows 10), same video card (GTX 1660 SUPER). Drivers and redist... upgraded. I mean this is a library problem... replacing the .exe with a working version should be the cure...

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by Elmar:

I have two computers, the first works, the other doesn't. Same operating system (Windows 10), same video card (GTX 1660 SUPER). Drivers and redist... upgraded. I mean this is a library problem... replacing the .exe with a working version should be the cure...

Can you confirm if the one that doesn't is running a newer build of Windows?

Because if there's a build-specific discrepancy, that would be odd.

In my case the gaming PC was recently upgraded to build 2004 - had to in order to resolve an issue I was running into, but I didn't own the game until after that, so I have no idea if it would have worked before it.

The other thing to check is if you have RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 errors in your Event Viewer.
RADAR errors were coded into Windows to detect memory leaks from applications.

I suspect - just based on my Windows certification - that what's happening is that the developers aren't publishing optimized versions of the applications when they release it to Steam. If they're publishing the "Debug" versions of the app to get around the Controlled Folders setting, for example, that's bad.

I had to load that file for Octopath Traveler, too, but there I know for a fact I had played it on an older build of Windows and it refused to run on the newer build. But I run a lot of various applications - non-Steam games included, and have never needed VCRUNTIME140_1.dll. It's only certain Steam games or programs that I know are specifically under development, like Duckstation.

I'm 99% convinced that some (not all) developers are not publishing their exe's correctly. A Win32 program published correctly from Visual Studio should not break in a future version if done properly. It's when you half ass the publish that you end up with compatibility breaking.

It'd be interesting to know if people who got the game from GOG have had the same issue.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by Laptop:

Really there has to be a "normal" way to fix this, downloading random DLL files off the Internet and placing them in your Windows folder really isn't good practice.

Again, I don't disagree.

But there won't be another occasion soon where the game is $30.

Second, again, dll-files is completely safe.

Here's a VirusTotal scan result from 5 days ago (I'm telling people, dll-files is constantly checked). VirusTotal runs viral scans from multiple engines to identify bad actors.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/3b792da47040c3b3e0804cdc5153eef4e802b6975963029d8dc360cb824a7b62/detection


I don't like having to manually drop a DLL either - as a developer. But when you're dealing with other developers who don't understand how to properly publish their product, I do what I must to get my money's worth because it's clear they have no interest in fixing problems like this; if they were, you wouldn't need Special K out there fixing their problems for them in many games.

[cindysaunders]

I bought my version on Sept 20 for full price just never got around to trying to play until yesterday. I sure hope I can get a refund if this can't be solved! I did get the .dll file from dll.com but it made no difference. Right clicking on DS.exe and running with admin privileges gives no error message.

[Elmar]

"... it's clear they have no interest in fixing problems like this..." i agree. Today money refund.