Like a few others who recently picked up the game, I encountered an issue where the game launches without any problems, but once you hit the New Game/Load Game screen, the title soft-locks when attempting to create a new file. I tried to figure out a fix for 3 weeks, scouring the internet for a solution. Even TT and WB support had no idea what the issue seems to be. I submitted detailed bug reports, provided DxDiag, and had a lengthy back-and-forth with their tech support. Nothing. "we're going to escalate this, thanks" and that was it.

Let me preface this by saying a few things: I am a professional QA director, troubleshooting hardware is my life, I know all the tricks, the tools, the things to check when it comes to troubleshooting problematic software on various hardware configs. Additionally, I just built this gaming rig in January of this year with fairly high-end specs (Ryzen 9, 32 GB DDR4 RAM, AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, 1 TB M.2 SSD). Nothing I did fixed the issue... until I tried stepping back and thinking simpler.

The issue seems to be an issue with the player data system; Propagating a save file, saving to a save file, loading a save file, they all cause the soft-lock. I verified this by creating a save file on a different PC where the game worked, and moving the save file over to my main gaming PC. It didn't load, obviously, but then I started to think about the cloud save Steam uses. I disabled it, but I still had the same issue. Odd, but I pushed on. Then it hit me: Putting Steam into offline mode before launching the game, and keeping it in offline mode the entire time I play. This did the trick.

I don't know WHY, maybe there's a conflicting port somewhere, maybe there's an issue with the netcode, it's beyond me and at this point, I don't care: the game works. I can play, I can save, it still has some issues when trying to quit due to the autosave function, but that's the solution for those of you searching for this answer:

**Offline mode, launch the game, play, when you're done, reconnect Steam to online mode.**

I will posit that this probably prohibits you from online play in whatever form it comes in, but baby steps. I'll update this thread further if I can narrow down more workarounds.

Ok well... that's a kick in the dong.

After playing for a few hours yesterday, my save file seems to have not saved, and I cannot load my progress as it wasn't recorded anywhere.

Two steps forward, one step back.

Stay tuned.