Game doesn't launch at all EDIT: Fixed!!

[LoboRundas]

Hello! Bought and installed the game, when I try to run it it prompts me to give administrator access so Steam can supposedly install something, then a small EA App window pops up saying "Preparing game..." for a bit, and after that it disappears and the game starts "validating" itself on Steam. After that happens, complete radio silence, the game doesn't start, and the EA App is open. If I click "Play" again it just repeats every single time.

I have also tried to run the game through Frosty Mod Manager, as I saw some people recommend that to get it running, but that also doesn't work (the same loop happens). Any help appreciated!

EDIT: Fixed!!

It was either this:

Originally posted by gelox:

Press Windows+R

enter "regedit"

go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BioWare\Mass Effect Andromeda

edit "Install Dir"

write your game location path (my path is K:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Mass Effect Andromeda)

Or the solution presented in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1238000/discussions/0/7264963996316354911/
Gonna paste it here too, in case that thread disappears someday for whatever reason:

Originally posted by HAL-9000:

Just found something incase this helps anyone else:
I purchased the Mass Effect Andromeda (Delux Edition) via Steam because I thought it would be easier to play it on SteamDeck, even though I had purchased it via EA Origin ~ 8 years ago.

It works fine on SteamDeck, but this caused a conflict on my desktop computer with the new EA Play app because when Steam tries to launch it, it thinks the game needs to be installed via EA Play since it was still linked to my account.

Symptoms are: Launching the Game via Steam causes the EA Play ("Thin client") to appear, it says "Preparing game" for about a minute, then it closes mysteriously and Steam goes into a "Validating Game files" cycle, but the game never launched.

The fix: in Steam use "Show installed files location" to open up the install location:
example: "C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Mass Effect Andromeda"

Manually run (double click) on MassEffectAndromeda.exe in there, this will actually launch the EA Play app. It will tell me that Andromeda is not installed, because it thinks I bought it thru Origin.

The fix is: tell EA Play to install the game, but you don't want to install the large game twice... so I found out that if I click "install" inside of EA Play, but I tell it the Location of the existing Steam install (example "C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Mass Effect Andromeda") it will run a setup process and acknowledge the game is installed, without actually re-downloading it. At first the EA Play client looks like it is installing, but it will get stuck at about 1% and then Jump to 97% done when it recognizes the files are already there.

Now Steam and EA Play are both happy with the game being installed, and even better: EA Play now recognizes its a Steam installed game, it says "Deluxe Edition accessed thru Steam".