PC players who pre-ordered the digital deluxe edition should be enjoying Hogwarts Legacy early access on Steam, but many are reporting issues trying to open and play the game.
The Harry Potter-based open-world RPG from Avalanche Software doesn’t officially release for everyone until tomorrow, February 10. Those particularly curious about the magical experience Hogwarts Legacy offers, however, had the chance to pre-order the Digital Deluxe Edition, which gifts players with the ability to play up to 72 hours before launch. That time has been increasingly dwindling as the week rolls on, so it’s crucially important to make the most of this perk and jump in early while you still can.
All seems to be well for players wanting to enjoy Hogwarts Legacy early access on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It’s PC players on Steam that are finding the most difficulty, having issues playing – and sometimes even launching – the game. Thankfully, the community that has quickly built up around Hogwarts Legacy is already offering useful fixes and workarounds to resolve the issue on Steam via the ‘Report a Bug’ feature on the Warner Bros. website. Here are some of the suggested tricks to get players up and running.
Working wizardry
If you’re someone who can’t seem to start the game on Steam at all, either because it’s crashing upon launch or the green play button isn’t appearing, the easiest recommendation is to close the Steam application outright and open it back up. That’s right, it’s the old turn-it-off-then-on-again solution.
Should this simple fix fail, there are a couple other more involved solutions available for players on Steam to try. For one, you may want to try verifying game files. You can do this by right-clicking on Hogwarts Legacy in your Steam library, going to 'Properties' and then selecting the local 'Local Files' option. From here, it’s as straightforward as selecting 'Verify'. Once your game files have been verified by Steam, you can attempt to open the game.
Another workaround is to uninstall Hogwarts Legacy entirely, exiting Steam and then re-entering to install it again. Failing that you can attempt to run the game as an administrator (that old chestnut). Finally, the last fix some players have recommended is to increase paging file size in Windows. You can access this feature by searching for 'Advanced System' on your PC, finding the 'Advanced' tab and unchecking the 'Automatically manage paging file size for all drives' function to set your custom size.
Launch day woes are of course nothing new for AAA games, and the Hogwarts Legacy early access period is proving no exception – at least on PC. Give these various fixes a try to take advantage of the pre-order benefit and hopefully you’ll be able to enter the wizarding world ahead of the game’s full release tomorrow, February 10.
