Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Freezes on “Press Any Button” Screen

[Pepetanks]

I purchased Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Gold Edition on Steam, but the game always freezes at the same point. It launches fine, shows the intro screen, but when it reaches the "Press Any Button" screen, it completely locks up and stops responding.

What I Have Tried:
- Verified file integrity on Steam.
- Reinstalled the game and Ubisoft Connect from scratch.
- Ran the game as administrator.
- Deleted the configuration folder from "Documents".
- Tested without an internet connection and in Ubisoft Connect offline mode.
- Tried launching without a controller connected and disabled Steam Input compatibility.
- Formatted my PC and reinstalled everything on a separate HDD.
- Tried running the game in windowed mode
- Forced the game to run in DirectX 10.
- Disabled DLCs on Steam to check if the issue is related to the Gold Edition.
- Updated all PC drivers (GPU, chipset, DirectX, etc.).
Nothing worked. Strangely, the standard edition (non-Gold), which I previously owned on Ubisoft Connect, worked fine before.

Extra Information:
The game seems to be running internally, but it freezes on the interface before entering the menu.
I tested other games (Days Gone, Shadow of Mordor, Batman Arkham Series, Marvel Rivals, Call of Duty), and all work fine with the same controller.
When I try launching it from Ubisoft Connect, Steam opens automatically.
The logs from the game and Ubisoft Connect don’t show clear errors, but I can attach them if needed.
Could this be a Gold Edition issue, a conflict between Steam and Ubisoft Connect, or some recent compatibility problem?

Has anyone experienced this and found a solution?

[Sniffz]

It's not much of a solution, but I have the exact same problem, and the only thing that works is setting the game's affinity to realtime in Task Manager. This gets me past the "Press Any Button" screen every time, and the game runs smoothly once I'm in it.

[p1picØ]

same here

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIII_IIIIIIIIIIIIIII]

Try turning off RTSS (or other non-Ubisoft or Steam overlays) or waiting on the title screen for a few moments. I had the same problem and was at my wits' end trying to figure out what was causing it while ignoring the most obvious culprit.

[Stanger]

i have same problem still can not play this game since i bay till this moment.

[mertvuralgs1905]

assasins creed syndicate giriş ekranı

oyun press the key kısmından sonra donuyor ve açmıyor

[Ubi-Vinci]

Hello everyone

Sorry to hear that you face this issue with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate getting stuck on “Press Any Button” screen.

@Sniffz, thanks for suggesting the CPU affinity workaround.

For all those affected, can you let us know what CPU models you have in your PCs, please?

[gret_as]

Same situation.

[gret_as]

Originally posted by Ubi-Vinci:

Hello everyone

Sorry to hear that you face this issue with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate getting stuck on “Press Any Button” screen.

@Sniffz, thanks for suggesting the CPU affinity workaround.

For all those affected, can you let us know what CPU models you have in your PCs, please?

in my PC AMD 9800X3D

[Ubi-Vinci]

Thank you, gret_as.

Did you try the CPU affinity workaround? Does it work for you?
Ryzen 9800X3D is an 8 core / 16 thread CPU and usually this issue affects CPUs with more cores and threads than that.

Perhaps there is something else running in the background that cases this issue in your case? Unless of course, you tested the CPU core limitation and it worked. Let us know.

As for the background applications and process. Do you have any 3rd party software running when you are launching the game?

Any communicators, 3rd party antivirus, a VPN service, MSI Afterburner, Riva Tuner, etc?
Disabling background applications on PC[www.ubisoft.com]

[gret_as]

Originally posted by Ubi-Vinci:

Thank you, gret_as.

Did you try the CPU affinity workaround? Does it work for you?
Ryzen 9800X3D is an 8 core / 16 thread CPU and usually this issue affects CPUs with more cores and threads than that.

Perhaps there is something else running in the background that cases this issue in your case? Unless of course, you tested the CPU core limitation and it worked. Let us know.

As for the background applications and process. Do you have any 3rd party software running when you are launching the game?

Any communicators, 3rd party antivirus, a VPN service, MSI Afterburner, Riva Tuner, etc?
Disabling background applications on PC[www.ubisoft.com]

Nothing that interferes with the game is running. It helps to set the priority in real time. But it must be done every time the game is launched.

[The Adult Owl]

Originally posted by Ubi-Vinci:

Hello everyone

Sorry to hear that you face this issue with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate getting stuck on “Press Any Button” screen.

@Sniffz, thanks for suggesting the CPU affinity workaround.

For all those affected, can you let us know what CPU models you have in your PCs, please?

Same problem here Ryzen 7800X3D.
Changing in Task Manager the Priority setting to Realtime fixed it, but it is a bit of a hassle.

[Ubi-Vinci]

Thank you, The Adult Owl.
Just to be clear, is this changing the task priority or also CPU affinity?

And is this happening on Windows 10 or 11?

[gret_as]

It's happening on Windows 11 22H4 and changing the task priority. But this step should be do every starting of game..... Please Ubisoft, make patch for this misunderstanding...

[Pepetanks]

Originally posted by Sniffz:

It's not much of a solution, but I have the exact same problem, and the only thing that works is setting the game's affinity to realtime in Task Manager. This gets me past the "Press Any Button" screen every time, and the game runs smoothly once I'm in it.

Thank you! I will check this and hope it solves my problem!

[Pepetanks]

Originally posted by IIIIIIIIIIIIIII_IIIIIIIIIIIIIII:

Try turning off RTSS (or other non-Ubisoft or Steam overlays) or waiting on the title screen for a few moments. I had the same problem and was at my wits' end trying to figure out what was causing it while ignoring the most obvious culprit.

I don’t have any active monitoring processes or third-party overlays. I just launched Steam, Ubisoft Connect started automatically, and the game froze. Not even the controller I use to play was connected at the time.