Back 4 Blood is the latest and hottest gore- and gib-fest to grace Steam. And it’s great fun, too, assuming you can actually run it. Unfortunately, some players have downloaded and installed the game only to find that it simply won’t launch. Yet others watch with dejected expressions as the game crashes on startup. If you’re one of the poor souls unable to get Back 4 Blood to load, we have some ideas on how you can fix it.
Back 4 Blood not launching? Try this crashing on startup fix
Problems that prevent games from launching often stem from corrupted data or missing files. If Back 4 Blood is not launching or crashing on startup, the simplest fix is to verify the integrity of the game’s files. This process will download the files required to launch the game successfully.
If you haven’t verified the integrity of a Steam game’s files before, here’s how it works:
- Open Steam and navigate to your Library
- Right-click the entry for Black 4 Blood, then click Properties
- Click Local Files
- Finally, click Verify integrity of game files
This function exists within Steam for a purpose: To clean up any data that may become corrupted. More often than not, this seems to happen when an update is paused or canceled. In rarer cases, patches themselves introduce game-breaking bugs. Either way, the most direct fix is to verify the game files. Anything that’s missing or broken will be replaced, and that should be enough to get the game running again.
What if verifying the game files doesn’t work?
Now onto the bad news: If verifying the game’s files doesn’t fix the problem, then you’ll need to figure out what the problem is. Crashing is atypical behavior in that it’s almost always caused by an unexpected interaction. By and large, the interaction is usually between the game’s files (which should be fine if they’ve been verified) and your hardware’s drivers. However, it could be caused by overclocking, external software such as overlays, or even custom configurations.
Unfortunately, even though we can offer advice on how to stop the game from crashing or the best settings for smooth gameplay, we can’t help you diagnose your specific issue remotely. You’ll have to poke around and figure that out for yourself. However, common good advice holds that you should update Windows and your GPU drivers to the latest versions. Closing background programs, especially if they aren’t needed, is another good step. If none of that works, you may consider rolling back to the last version of the game software you were able to run successfully, if possible. Otherwise, if Back 4 Blood is not launching or just crashing on startup, you might need to reach out to Warner Bros. Game support.
