Game won't launch - have tried everything

[DidYouSeeGrant]

I just bought Dragon Quest today and was really excited to play it. However, whenever I would try and launch the game, a pop-up window saying it's launching comes up for half a second and the game just doesn't ever launch. I found many people were having similar issues so I have tried everything from updating my drivers to reinstalling the game to turning off certain settings in the properties of the game. I am very frustrated as I do not know what to do and also feel like I just wasted 40 bucks. If anyone could please help me I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

[krauss27]

Im having the same issue and I hope this can be resolved

[methodmadness]

Same issue - really don't have time for buggy messes.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Can you take a screenshot of the "pop-up window"? Usually, you should just get a splash screen that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/EEIr95z.png

Don't know what help I (or most on this forum) can provide, really. There was a Tech Support section on the OG Steam forum, which was more suited for something like this. You might specify your hardware details as well.

One thing I might mention as a potential solution offhand: right click the game in your Steam library -> "Properties" -> "Local Files" -> "Verify integrity of game files"

Random question: Do you run an AMD Radeon 5XXX series GPU?

[DidYouSeeGrant]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

Can you take a screenshot of the "pop-up window"? Usually, you should just get a splash screen that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/EEIr95z.png

Don't know what help I (or most on this forum) can provide, really. There was a Tech Support section on the OG Steam forum, which was more suited for something like this. You might specify your hardware details as well.

One thing I might mention as a potential solution offhand: right click the game in your Steam library -> "Properties" -> "Local Files" -> "Verify integrity of game files"

Random question: Do you run an AMD Radeon 5XXX series GPU?

Thanks for responding. I would screenshot the pop up window but it goes away almost immediately. It looks like a standard steam pop up saying the game is launching. I have tried verifying the integrity of my game files but no luck. I do not get any splash screen either. I click it and essentially nothing happens after that.

As for hardware details:
CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM - two 8GB TEAMGROUP-UD4-3200 DDR4

Hopefully this helps.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by "V. Ice":

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

Can you take a screenshot of the "pop-up window"? Usually, you should just get a splash screen that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/EEIr95z.png

Don't know what help I (or most on this forum) can provide, really. There was a Tech Support section on the OG Steam forum, which was more suited for something like this. You might specify your hardware details as well.

One thing I might mention as a potential solution offhand: right click the game in your Steam library -> "Properties" -> "Local Files" -> "Verify integrity of game files"

Random question: Do you run an AMD Radeon 5XXX series GPU?

Thanks for responding. I would screenshot the pop up window but it goes away almost immediately. It looks like a standard steam pop up saying the game is launching. I have tried verifying the integrity of my game files but no luck. I do not get any splash screen either. I click it and essentially nothing happens after that.

As for hardware details:
CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM - two 8GB TEAMGROUP-UD4-3200 DDR4

Hopefully this helps.

You might check Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Crashes and Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Logs -- there's a decent chance you have a minidump file in one of those two directories (likely in one or several subdirectories, i.e. "UE4CC-Windows-******").

You might also try what's recommended in this post- backup/clear these two directories:

Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ ######### \ Saved \ SaveGames \ Book -- (in the event of a corrupted (auto)save file)
Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Config \ WindowsNoEditor -- (in the event of a corrupted configuration file)

(^Both of these directories are retained even when you delete/reinstall the game)

[DidYouSeeGrant]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

Originally posted by "V. Ice":

Thanks for responding. I would screenshot the pop up window but it goes away almost immediately. It looks like a standard steam pop up saying the game is launching. I have tried verifying the integrity of my game files but no luck. I do not get any splash screen either. I click it and essentially nothing happens after that.

As for hardware details:
CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM - two 8GB TEAMGROUP-UD4-3200 DDR4

Hopefully this helps.

You might check Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Crashes and Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Logs -- there's a decent chance you have a minidump file in one of those two directories (likely in one or several subdirectories, i.e. "UE4CC-Windows-******").

You might also try what's recommended in this post- backup/clear these two directories:

Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ ######### \ Saved \ SaveGames \ Book -- (in the event of a corrupted (auto)save file)
Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Config \ WindowsNoEditor -- (in the event of a corrupted configuration file)

(^Both of these directories are retained even when you delete/reinstall the game)

When I go into Documents \ My Games it is completely empty. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game but it is still empty. If you're stumped I understand and appreciate your help otherwise.

[DidYouSeeGrant]

I also tried to open it through finding the application in the local files and when I try to run it I get a pop-up saying "The code execution cannot proceed because VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem." I reinstalled and it did not fix the problem, but I hope this info helps.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by "V. Ice":

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

You might check Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Crashes and Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Logs -- there's a decent chance you have a minidump file in one of those two directories (likely in one or several subdirectories, i.e. "UE4CC-Windows-******").

You might also try what's recommended in this post- backup/clear these two directories:

Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ ######### \ Saved \ SaveGames \ Book -- (in the event of a corrupted (auto)save file)
Documents \ My Games \ DRAGON QUEST XI S \ Steam \ Saved \ Config \ WindowsNoEditor -- (in the event of a corrupted configuration file)

(^Both of these directories are retained even when you delete/reinstall the game)

When I go into Documents \ My Games it is completely empty. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game but it is still empty. If you're stumped I understand and appreciate your help otherwise.

Okay -- that's interesting. There should be configuration files somewhere for the game to run:
I checked the PCGamingWiki page[www.pcgamingwiki.com], and the configuration files location is listed as

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\DRAGON QUEST XI S\Steam\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

so it may depend entirely on your setup, user account, etc.

Same thing with the save files location:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\DRAGON QUEST XI S\Steam\<user-id>\Saved\SaveGames\Book

1. Are you looking under the correct user/drive? (Maybe there's a reason it could be under a different one?)
2. Could there be a permissions issue preventing the game from creating/accessing those directories?

Those are just my first suspicions. I did see another thread where someone literally just needed to restart their PC.

Edit: See post below -- (it's probably not even getting to the point of creating those directories)

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by "V. Ice":

I also tried to open it through finding the application in the local files and when I try to run it I get a pop-up saying "The code execution cannot proceed because VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem." I reinstalled and it did not fix the problem, but I hope this info helps.

That might be a big help!

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433-9aff-95f26a218cc0

You'll probably want the link for "vc_redist.x64.exe"

(Usually this is handled by Steam itself: when you first launch a game that requires it, Steam will show a "Installing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable" message -- in some cases, however, this doesn't happen)

[DidYouSeeGrant]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

Originally posted by "V. Ice":

I also tried to open it through finding the application in the local files and when I try to run it I get a pop-up saying "The code execution cannot proceed because VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem." I reinstalled and it did not fix the problem, but I hope this info helps.

That might be a big help!

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433-9aff-95f26a218cc0

You'll probably want the link for "vc_redist.x64.exe"

(Usually this is handled by Steam itself: when you first launch a game that requires it, Steam will show a "Installing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable" message -- in some cases, however, this doesn't happen)

Oh my god it worked! The splash screen came up and the game loaded! I cannot thank you enough for your help!