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How to fix Hades keeps crashing on a Windows 10 PC

“Why is Hades crashing in Windows 10?” This question is often asked by Hades’ fans who can’t have enough of the game.

Hades from Supergiant Games is a new rogue-like role-playing game that features lightning-quick hack-and-slash combat for survival in the underworld. Although users had early access to the game back in December 2018, it was officially released to multiple platforms, including Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Nintendo Switch, on September 17, 2020.

You play as the Immortal Prince of the Underworld (Zagreus), and your mission is to escape the underworld. The powers and mythic weapons of Olympus will help you to break free of the god of death while growing stronger as the story progresses. It’s an exciting game that seems to be getting a lot of traction on Steam.

However, like any other new game release, it’s not without bugs – it keeps crashing during gameplay or at startup on Windows 10. In our post today, we’ll show you how to fix Hades crashes on startup.

What Causes Hades to Crash or Not to Launch?

  • Low system specs: Most PC games are CPU- and GPU-intensive, and Hades is not an exception. This means that you need to have a powerful rig to run it. Otherwise, the game might fail to launch – or worse, keep crashing during gameplay.
  • Outdated or faulty drivers: If your graphics card driver is outdated, missing, or corrupted, the game and other apps cannot work as intended. To resolve the issue, you’ll need to update your graphics driver.
  • Improper game installation: If the game’s files have not been downloaded properly, the game might not function as it should. It’s also possible that your antivirus mistakenly deleted some of the game’s files, thereby preventing proper installation. What’s more, you need to check if you have enough space on your hard disk to install the game.

How to Fix Hades Crashes on a PC

Fix 1: Update Your Video Card Driver

So, what if Hades crashes during gameplay? Your video card could be faulty. The first step is to ensure that you are running the latest graphics card driver. To do this, you can opt to go the manual way, which involves digging up details about the driver’s model and version. Once you have that information, head on to your vendor’s website and download the latest driver version for your graphics card.

If you’re not familiar with how computers work, this might prove to be a complex matter. Even for the tech-savvy, manually updating a graphics driver can be quite a time-consuming process.

Alternatively, you can opt to use the built-in Windows Device Manager. Here is how to run the tool:

  1. Right-click the Windows logo in the taskbar and select “Device Manager”.
  2. Find and expand “Display adapters”, right-click your graphics device, and select “Update driver”.
  3. Choose the first option, which lets Windows automatically search for and install the latest driver software, and wait for the process to complete. Windows will most likely tell you that it has determined that the best drivers have already been installed on your computer.

Your best option is to take advantage of third-party driver updating software. So, if you want to opt for the safest and most reliable method of updating your device drivers, we recommend trying Auslogics Driver Updater. This is a dedicated program whose sole purpose is to detect driver issues affecting your Windows system and fix them. The process is automatic, so you don’t have to worry about knowing which drivers need updating.

To install Driver Updater, go to its official download page and install it on your PC. The program should then automatically initiate the diagnostics and scan for outdated, missing, and corrupted device drivers. It will then display the detailed results of the scan. The thing with Driver Updater is that it first identifies the Windows OS that you are running to ensure that it installs only the correct driver versions designed for your operating system.

What’s more, it gives you the option to update all the drivers at once (not just the graphics driver), or you can update only the drivers you want. Either way, there’s a backup feature that lets you restore the old drivers if you run into issues with the new versions.

Once you’ve completed updating the drivers, restart your machine for the changes to be applied. Go on and try playing Hades to see if it will crash.

Fix 2: Verify the Game’s Files

If the game’s files have issues, it might be the reason why it keeps crashing at startup or during gameplay. To resolve the problem, you’ll need to scan and repair the files. Here’s how:

  1. Exit Hades and launch “Steam”.
  2. Go to “Library”, and locate Hades from the list of games in your library.
  3. Right-click on it and select “Properties”.
  4. Once the “Properties” window opens, open the “Local Files” tab, and click on “Verify Integrity of Game Files…”.

Once the process has been completed successfully, relaunch Hades to see if it crashes. If it happens again, try the next fix below.

Fix 3: Run Hades as an Administrator

A section of users reported that running Hades as an admin had resolved the startup crash issue and also got rid of the Hades black screen error. To try this fix on your rig, follow the steps below:

  1. Launch “Steam” and go to “Library”.
  2. Find Hades, right-click on it, and select “Properties”.
  3. Click on the “Local Files” option and select “Browse Local Files…”.
  4. Locate the Hades.exe executable, right-click on it and select “Run as administrator”. Try playing the game to check if the issue has been resolved. If it has, you’ll need to configure the settings to always run Hades as an administrator.
  5. Right-click the Hades.exe executable once again and open “Properties”.
  6. Move to the “Compatibility” tab and check the box next to “Run this program as an administrator” under “Settings”.
  7. Click Apply > OK and check if this fix worked for you.

Fix 4: Disable the Steam Overlay

If there is an issue with the Steam overlay, the game can freeze and crash. While this feature doesn’t usually cause issues, some users reported that disabling Steam overlay had worked for them.

Here is how to do this:

  1. Go to Steam, right-click Hades in “Steam Library”, and select “Properties”.
  2. Under the “General” tab, uncheck the checkbox next to “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game”.
  3. Click “OK” and then “Close”.

If this doesn’t work, try the next steps below:

  1. Still in “Steam”, open “Settings” and select “In-Game” in the left pane. Uncheck the following boxes in the right pane:
  • Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game (which you’ve already unchecked)
  • Use the Big Picture Overlay when using a Steam Input enabled controller from the desktop
  • Use Desktop Game Theatre when launching desktop games while SteamVR is active
  1. Click “OK” and exit Steam.
  2. Relaunch Hades to check if it works properly this time.

Fix 5: Change the Game Launch Command

  1. Go to Steam’s “Library”, right-click your game title and select “Properties”.
  2. Switch to the “General” tab and click on “Set Launch Options”.
  3. In the input field, enter the command /AllowVoiceBankStreaming=false.
  4. Click “OK” and try running Hades once again. Hopefully, it works fine this time.

Fix 6: Pause Your Antivirus Software Temporarily

Your antivirus program could be preventing the installation of some of the game’s files, thereby causing it to crash at startup. In some cases, the antivirus software automatically quarantines the game’s data, which can impact its stability.

You could try disabling it temporarily to check if it’s the culprit. Remember, using your PC without an active antivirus application makes it vulnerable to attacks. So, as soon as you’re finished checking if your antivirus is responsible, turn it on immediately.

Fix 7: Install the Latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable

If the Visual C++ Redistributable has been corrupted or is missing, you could try installing its latest version. To do so, go to the official Microsoft download page and download Visual C++ that’s compatible with your operating system.

Fix 8: Perform a Clean Boot

You may have installed software that triggers conflicts with other software. To identify the culprit and resolve the issue, we recommend performing a clean boot, which starts Windows with only the basic drivers and startup programs.

To proceed, follow these steps:

  1. Press the Windows logo and R keys on your keyboard, type msconfig into the “Run” dialog box, and press “Enter”.
  2. In the “System Configuration” window, open the “Services” tab and check the “Hide all Microsoft services” checkbox in the bottom left corner.
  3. Look for services that are not related to your graphics card or sound card manufacturers, such as NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD Radeon, and uncheck them.
  4. Click “Disable all” and “OK”.
  5. Restart your PC and play the game to check if the error has been fixed. If you can successfully run the game without it crashing, re-enable the services one by one until you find the culprit. You can then decide to keep it disabled.

If this guide has helped you fix Hades crashing on your PC, please let us know by commenting below.