Marvel Rivals Crashing on Startup: Causes, Checks and Fixes (2026)

If Marvel Rivals closes the moment you hit Play, before you ever see the main menu, the problem usually lives at the boundary between Unreal Engine 5’s initialization sequence and your system’s graphics, shader, or security layer. Because NetEase built this on UE5, startup crashes tend to follow a predictable set of failure modes: the engine tries to compile or load cached shaders it cannot find, the DirectX 12 device gets rejected by the driver, or the anti-cheat subsystem conflicts with a running process before the game window ever renders. A crash after five minutes of gameplay is a different beast. A crash on startup means the engine never finishes booting, so the fixes below target that narrow window specifically.

Likely Causes

Fix 1: Verify Game File Integrity

How to check

In Steam, right-click Marvel Rivals in your library, select Properties, go to Installed Files, and click Verify integrity of game files. If you installed through Epic, click the three-dot menu on the game tile, choose Manage, then Verify. A corrupted or partially downloaded .pak file is the single most common reason the engine aborts before rendering a frame.

What to do

Let the verification finish. Steam or Epic will re-download any files that fail the hash check. Once complete, launch the game normally. If verification reports zero issues and the crash persists, move to Fix 2.

How to undo it

No undo is needed. Verification only replaces files that are already broken or modified. Your saves, settings, and installed mods (if any) are untouched.

Fix 2: Clean-Reinstall Your GPU Driver

How to check

Open Event Viewer (Win+X, then Event Viewer) and look under Windows Logs > System for entries from “Display” or “nvlddmkm” (NVIDIA) / “amdkmdag” (AMD) timestamped at the moment of your crash. A “The display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered” message confirms the driver is involved.

What to do

Download the latest driver from NVIDIA’s or AMD’s site. During installation, choose Custom or Advanced setup and check “Perform a clean installation.” For stubborn cases, use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Safe Mode first, then install fresh. After the driver is in, reboot before launching Marvel Rivals.

How to undo it

Uninstall the current driver via Settings > Apps or DDU, then install a previous version you know was stable. You can revert to Windows Update’s fallback driver by rolling back in Device Manager under Display Adapters.

Fix 3: Clear the UE5 Shader Cache

How to check

Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%\MarvelRivals\Saved\ and look for a ShaderCache folder. If it is several gigabytes or was last modified on a date that predates a recent game update, the cached shaders may reference stale pipeline state objects.

What to do

Delete the entire ShaderCache folder. The first launch afterward will take noticeably longer because UE5 recompiles shaders. Do not interrupt this process even if the window appears frozen; the engine is building what it needs. Subsequent launches should be fast.

How to undo it

The cache rebuilds automatically on every launch. There is no permanent loss; you simply pay the recompile time once.

Fix 4: Launch with Compatibility Flags

How to check

If the game crashes within the first two seconds on a system where DirectX 12 is problematic (older GPUs, certain Intel Arc cards, or hybrid iGPU/dGPU laptops), forcing an alternate rendering path can confirm the DX12 layer is the culprit.

What to do

In Steam, right-click the game, Properties, and add launch options. Try -dx11 to bypass DirectX 12 entirely. If that does not help, add -windowed -ResX=1280 -ResY=720 to rule out a resolution or fullscreen-exclusive handshake failure. Append -log so a console window prints the exact UE5 fatal error string during the next crash attempt.

How to undo it

Open the same Properties > Launch Options field and delete everything you typed. The game reverts to its default startup behavior.

Fix 5: Disable Overlays and Injection Software

How to check

Crash logs that mention “injection,” “CreateRemoteThread,” or a failure to hook the swapchain point to overlay conflict. If you run Steam Overlay, Discord overlay, NVIDIA GeForce Experience overlay, Xbox Game Bar, or MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner simultaneously with Marvel Rivals, the chance of a hook collision rises sharply.

What to do

Disable overlays one at a time. In Steam: Settings > In-Game > uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay. In Discord: User Settings > Game Overlay > toggle off. In GeForce Experience: Settings > In-Game Overlay > off. Also exit RivaTuner Statistics Server and close MSI Afterburner before launching. Test after each change.

How to undo it

Re-enable each overlay individually through its respective settings panel. If the game remains stable, you can usually turn all overlays back on and identify which specific one caused the conflict by re-enabling them one by one.

Fix 6: Reset User Config Files

How to check

Go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\MarvelRivals\Saved\Config\Windows\ and inspect GameUserSettings.ini and Engine.ini. A crash on startup that began right after you tweaked a setting (resolution, refresh rate, ray-tracing toggle) strongly suggests an invalid key was written that UE5 cannot parse during boot.

What to do

Close Marvel Rivals. Delete both GameUserSettings.ini and Engine.ini from that folder. Launch the game fresh; the engine regenerates defaults. You will need to reapply your graphics preferences once you are in the menu.

How to undo it

If you want to keep your previous settings, copy the files to a backup folder before deleting them rather than permanently removing them. Paste them back to restore the exact state they were in, including the broken configuration.

Fix 7: Exclude the Game from Security Software Interference

How to check

Open your antivirus or Windows Security, check protection history or quarantine logs, and look for any entry mentioning MarvelRivals.exe, NetEaseAntiCheat.sys, or a driver file in the game’s install directory. UE5 games with kernel-level anti-cheat are frequent false-positive targets.

What to do

Add the entire game install folder (default: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Marvel Rivals\) to your antivirus exclusion list. For Windows Defender: Settings > Privacy & Security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Manage settings > Add or remove exclusions > Add a folder. If you use a third-party AV, find its equivalent exclusion or allow-list panel.

How to undo it

Remove the folder from the exclusion list through the same interface. Be aware that re-enabling scanning on that directory may re-trigger the false positive.

Fix 8: Install Latest Visual C++ Redistributables and DirectX End-User Runtime

How to check

If the crash log contains “Exception Code: 0xC0000135” or references a missing VCRUNTIME140.dll, MSVCP140.dll, or a D3D12 component, your system is missing a runtime library the engine expects.

What to do

Install the latest Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015-2022 (both x86 and x64 versions) from Microsoft’s official site. Then install the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, which backfills older D3D11 helper DLLs that some UE5 subsystems still call. Reboot after both installs complete.

How to undo it

These runtimes are system components; removing them can break other applications. If you must revert, use Settings > Apps to uninstall the specific redistributable version you added. In practice there is no reason to undo this step.

If Nothing Works

Gather your diagnostic data before posting to a forum or opening a NetEase support ticket. The crash reports live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MarvelRivals\Saved\Crashes\, each in a folder named with a timestamp. Open the most recent UEMinidump.dmp or CrashContext.runtime-xml and look for the “Call Stack” section. That stack trace tells you whether the failure originates in the rendering thread, the shader compiler, the anti-cheat module, or asset loading. Attach that XML and the last 50 lines of your MarvelRivals.log (also in the Saved folder) when you report the issue. If every fix above is exhausted and the log consistently shows a single fatal call stack, the problem is almost certainly a game-side bug triggered by your specific hardware configuration, and it is worth checking whether a hotfix has shipped since your last attempt. The 2026 patch cycle has been aggressive, so a build you tested six weeks ago may already have a targeted fix that a simple file verification (Fix 1) will pull down.

FAQ

Does Marvel Rivals require DirectX 12 or will DirectX 11 work?

The game is designed for DirectX 12 and requests it by default. A DX11 path exists but is not officially supported for online play. If you use -dx11 as a diagnostic flag, expect it to launch but potentially reject the connection with a “Unsupported rendering mode” message. If it launches without crashing, the DX12 device creation is confirmed as your bottleneck.

Why does it crash only after a game update, then work again if I launch twice?

UE5 stores shader binaries keyed to the engine version. An update invalidates the cached pipeline state objects. The first launch detects the mismatch, attempts a live recompile mid-boot, and sometimes fails if disk I/O is slow or the process is killed by a watchdog timer. The second launch finds the freshly built cache and boots cleanly. Deleting the cache manually (Fix 3) forces the recompile to happen in a controlled, patient pass.

Can running the game from a non-default install path cause startup crashes?

In most cases, no. NetEase’s launcher and the Steam/Epic integration handle arbitrary paths. However, if your install path contains non-ASCII characters or extremely long directory names, UE5’s internal string buffers can truncate the path and fail to locate .pak files, producing a crash with no useful log. Relocate to a short, ASCII-only path like D:\Games\MarvelRivals if this applies to you.

Is my SSD or HDD type relevant to startup crashes?

Indirectly. UE5’s startup phase performs a burst of sequential reads from .pak files and a parallel burst of small random reads from the shader cache. On an HDD with a low queue depth or a nearly full SSD triggering garbage collection stalls, the engine’s asset-loading watchdog can time out and call AppError before the render thread finishes initializing. The fix is the same regardless of drive type: clear the shader cache so the recompile pass uses a different I/O pattern, or move the install to an NVMe drive with sustained throughput headroom.