ARC Raiders is not launching, crashes with UE5 or EAC error: problem-solving guide

Despite being in good technical condition at release, with the latest patch ARC Raiders started to feel much worse. This is evident not only in gameplay bugs but also in how it interacts with the system, network, and anti-cheat. A big mistake many players make is trying to fix all problems with standard methods, as reinstalling Windows, updating DirectX, and other tips often simply don’t help. In this guide, we will explain what breaks down most often, why it happens, and what actions will actually help if ARC Raiders stops launching or crashes with an error.

Before launching ARC Raiders, it’s recommended to close the following applications:

The advice applies not only to obvious programs like autoclickers but also to popular applications: Discord, NVIDIA GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, and so on. Of course, many of them are harmless on their own, but in combination with Easy Anti-Cheat, they can cause problems already at the launch stage.

On gaming forums and in Steam, the community often complains about the following problem: you launch the game, the Easy Anti-Cheat window appears, and after about a minute of waiting, it closes and nothing happens. Rarely, an error window with “Embark Game Boot error” appears. It’s important to note that this is not a game crash or a problem with the graphics card; in most cases, EAC couldn’t initialize correctly and terminated the process itself.

Here are the main reasons:

This problem often occurs when Steam is installed in the system folder. Windows cuts rights by default, and EAC doesn’t like it. That’s why tips from the gaming community like “deleted steaminstall.vdf, moved Steam to C:Games — and it worked” are common.