Game not running.

[Snow]

Alright, I have over 300 hours on the steam version and up until today I've had no problems with the client. I've tried everything from reinstalling the game, running steam and honkai as admin, resetting my PC, and updating my drivers. I'm honestly at a loss on what to do. I try to run the game only for it to start and then suddenly stop as if I never pressed the button in the first place. There isn't any error message or anything that pops up either to give me some indication as to what is wrong. My PC has no problems running huge games like Spider-Man, Cyberpunk, Final Fantasy, Genshin Impact, etc. So is there some step I'm missing? I'd really appreciate the help, because my problem seems a bit unique in it not giving me an error message on my failed attempts to open the game.

[Meowish]

Since you didn't go in details and simply saying "not running" do you mean the game crashes, or the app isn't starting at all or the game stops after running to a certain point etc etc... So we can only give you the standard reply here.

Since the game works before, have you tried doing a system recovery back to the date when the game still works?

Check your anti-virus software, firewalls and check your windows security DEP (Data Execution Prevention) settings and put the game .exe files into the "exclude" list.

Check your Graphic Card driver. If you've updated recently, try revert to an older version. If you haven't updated for ages, try update it instead. (Just in case, doing revert doesn't mean installing a new "older" driver. It means do a system recovery and recover back to the date when the game still works.)

If that doesn't work either, try reset you IP address and try again (assuming you have a dynamic one). If your gov happened to ban gacha games or censoring IPs from China, you might want to try and use a VPN as well.

[Snow]

I said it exactly as it happens. I press "play" and the game does not open a window and eventually the app just reverts back to the "play" button as I never pressed it in the first place. And yes, I tried all that except changing my IP since it's impossible to do so with a standard non moving one. The client Hoyo provides has no problem starting, so at this point I know it's a problem unique to Steam. So is there any non "standard" reply to actually help?

[Meowish]

That means the game crashed during start up. It can means a lot of things, from not enough memory to DEP preventing the game from opening to anti-virus blocking the game from starting. And a high possibility that you have some background software running that the game's anti-cheat picked up as cheat and closed the game.

Since you said you installed 2 version. Check your Hoyoverse version installed folder then, you might have installed both version in a conflicted way too. But the highest chance still goes to your DEP and Security Settings. Also, make sure you put the CORRECT .exe files in the exclude list of your security systems, since you have 2 versions you need to put both sets in them.

The reason to switch IP is due to the game do ban IPs that have done mischief in the game. And if you are using an internet provider that uses dynamic IP, there's a chance for you to land on a banned IP address and resulted in the game not working, that's why resetting the IP works in this case. For fixed IP users who got their IP banned by the game for whatever "reasons" (editing game files/cheating in games) you can only use a VPN to get out of this, but there's a high chance your account itself is already banned. For countries that ban IP of the game itself, you will need a VPN to bypass it. But for your case, this isn't it since your game crashed during starting and didn't reached the login screen.

Oh yeah, one more possibility is your Steam Overlay setting isn't set correctly. The game require Steam Overlay to work.