Game Fails to Launch ("Failed To Initialize Player")

[Phorm]

Hello,

I recently purchased Sorry We're Closed, but I'm unable to even launch the game. When trying to play the game from my Steam Library, I get the following error:

"Failed to initialize player
Failed to initialize graphics.
Make sure you have DirectX 11 installed, have up to date drivers for your graphics card and have not disabled 3D acceleration in display settings.
InitializeEngineGraphics failed"

I'm running a i7-8700K and an RTX 3090 on the latest version of Windows 10. My GPU drivers are currently version 566.03.

DirectX is installed, dxdiag returns no issues whatsoever.

I can play numerous other games without issue, particularly ones that require DriectX. I'm able to play Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghostwire Tokyo, which are pretty intensive games, so 3D acceleration is absolutely on. I can play other games that require DirectX 11, like Crow Country or Little Kitty, Big City, so I know DirectX 11 is installed just fine.

I've verified the integrity of installed files for the game, and had no issue.

Searching around for this error for other games returns a lot of people saying that VCredist needs to be installed, but I've tried that and it doesn't work. All other advice seems to be about downloading sketchy DLLs, which I'm not comfortable doing.

Any advice as to why the game is having this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Oh, and one further note that may slightly be of interest is that the game is installed to a non-C: drive on my computer. My entire Steam library is on a non-C: drive, so I'm uncertain if this has an impact on anything. A minor detail, but perhaps worth mentioning?

[tom]

Hi Phorm

Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having launching the game. This is an error I've not seen before so I've been doing some searches and come across similar advice to what you've found. The results suggest there is some issue with either the graphics driver, C++ redistributables or a Windows error.

Being on a non-C: drive shouldn't be an problem. I have tested moving my Steam install of the game to another drive and it was able to run.

One recommendation that has reportedly worked for people seeing the issue with other games was to perform a clean install of the graphics drivers using DDU (display driver uninstaller).

Here are some specific steps around being in safe mode and disconnected from the internet for parts of the uninstall/reinstall process: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1ccssm0/complete_ddu_guide/

Hopefully this resolves the issue for you, if not please let me know and I will continue investigating.

Thank you

Tom

[Phorm]

Hi Tom,

Thanks much for your help and your suggestions on this. DDU is a program I'm well familiar with and have used often in the past, so it was easy enough to use it and install the GPU drivers again. Unfortunately, this didn't solve the issue.

To reiterate: Every other game on my system works without issue. Unity games, Games that use DirectX, Games that use DirectX 11, games that need C++ redistributables - Nothing like this has been happening with any other game, so I am very perplexed. It's as if Sorry We're Closed just can't see my GPU/DirectX install.

Is there anywhere I could look for a Log file that the game might generate on launch, to more specifically examine the error in question? It seems that Sorry We're Closed and a lot of later Unity Games don't generate an "output_log.txt" file in the Data directory, the way that Unity Games used to.

Additionally, are there any alternative renderers that Sorry We're Closed can work with? I've tried -force-glcore and -force-vulkan, and neither seemed to work.

Thanks again for your help on this. I really appreciate it.

[tom]

Hi Phorm

Thanks for trying with DDU, it is understandably a frustrating situation so thank you for your patience and testing these different things as well as looking for solutions.

Can I double check DDU was used in safe mode? I found instances of the issue with other games where someone was trying several times with DDU, but it only worked after using it in safe mode.

The current build doesn't create a log file. I will enable this for future builds of the game as it may provide helpful details. I am struggling to find reports where an update to the game resolved similar issues, however, if the issue is to do with some configuration from the game I would like to find the reason and resolve it.

I appreciate you aren't seeing the error with other games. It is a Unity specific error message, but at the moment I'm not sure if the version of Unity used for the games is a determining factor. I will contact Unity to see if they have other suggestions here.

For renderers, I would recommend trying only with the defaults with no launch options set as I have not tested with other options here.

I am curious to know if the Sorry We're Closed demo opens for you? The demo should be available to download from the store page. I believe Valve has made a recent change so you can still download a demo even if you have purchased the full game (this used to not be possible). If you don't mind trying that, it would be useful to know if it opens for you.

Maybe a longshot - I found a couple of threads mentioning the issue occurred only when "Duet Display" was installed, is that a program you use?

For some people encountering this error message on other games, reinstalling the c++ redistributables or refreshing/reinstalling Windows has helped. I don't want to suggest the Windows reinstall until we have exhausted other options - unless you have a spare drive, partition or second machine you are happy to try on.

In the meantime, I will continue my searches to look for suggestions, reach out to Unity and we should have a new build next week with the logging enabled.

Thank you

Tom

[Phorm]

Thanks a ton, Tom.

Just to address some of your suggestions and points:

Totally understood on the renderer. I will leave it be for sure in that case.

I'm unfamiliar with "Duet Display", so I can say I'm not using that - but this issue certainly does seem like the kind of narrow, edge case issue where conflicting software makes the difference. Sadly though, Duet Display isn't running on my system.

For the strangest bit: The Demo ran with zero issues whatsoever for whatever reason! I was able to download it and run it just fine. I was shocked to find that! It seems like only the full retail version is giving me problems.

Reinstalling the C++ redistributables sounds like a solid next step - Can you advise which version of them Sorry We're Closed looks for? I just want to be sure I'm grabbing the right version.

I just want to say, this is absolutely looking like one of those hyperspecific, one-machine-only issues that requires a ton of time to troubleshoot with very little in the way of reasonable returns on the effort invested - particularly for a developer! I simultaneously completely appreciate your assistance on this, and I also understand that this is probably getting outside the scope of reasonable support.

If nothing else, you mention reinstalling Windows. I'm in the (slow) process of building a new computer at the moment. It's going to take me some time yet, but what I would say is that if this is all a tremendous pain - I'm perfectly fine leaving Sorry We're Closed as a treat to play when that project is finished and I have a new system. So please don't fret too much, and thank you so for all your help!

[airpods]

I have the same problem but on Rust since today, I have Direct X 12 do I need to downgrade to 11?

I also tested this without any luck. Any other suggestions on how to get Rust working again?

[airpods]

This is the problem and how to solve it; https://support.facepunchstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/24444483513373-Failed-to-initialize-Reshade

[tom]

Hi still water

Thank you for sharing what worked for you to get Rust running again.

From the article you posted it sounds like Facepunch have taken specific action to stop Reshade working with Rust. I haven't made any attempts to stop Reshade working with Sorry We're Closed so I'm not sure that it will be the same solution for anyone experiencing that error message with my game. I am curious to know if it helps and it does give me something new to investigate here.

Thanks

Tom

p.s. Phorm - the new build with the logging is taking longer than I hoped as I need too disable some of the logs I was running so the output isn't as cluttered. I will post again when the new build is ready!