Solved: Steam Games Not Launching on Windows 10

You might feel confused and even frustrated when your games fails to launch on Steam. Don’t worry;this tutorial is here to help you fix your problem. You can be able to fix it with this guide by yourself before you ask a local technician to help you.

Fixes for ‘Steam games not launching’

Here’re 4 methods you can try to fix this problem. Try the next method if the previous one doesn’t work. Note: The screens shown below are from Windows 10, but all the fixes also apply to other versions of Windows.

  1. Make sure your Windows 10 is up-to-date
  2. Update your video card driver
  3. Verify your game cache files
  4. Close unnecessary programs

Method 1: Make sure your Windows 10 is up-to-date

It requires a latest Windows 10 system to ensure everything work properly on your computer. This problem could be happened when there is available update for your Windows 10 and you don’t install yet.

Check for Windows update on your Windows 10:

  1. Type update in your search box from Start. Then click Check for updates from the result.
  2. Click Check for updates.
  3. Install the available updates.
  4. Reboot your Windows and try to run your game on Steam to see if it works.

Note: If Windows tells you Your device is up to date after checking, please try our next method.

Method 2: Update your video card driver

This problem could be also due to an old or corrupted driver, particularly your video card driver. You could solve it through updating your device driver.

You can choose to download a latest video card driver from your computer manufacturer’s website or your video card manufacturer’s website, like NVIDIA, AMD, Intel. Then install the new driver on your Windows 10.

Or if you are not confident working with drivers manually or you don’t have enough time, we recommend you do it automatically with Driver Easy.

  1. Download and install Driver Easy. Then run it on your Windows.
  2. Click Scan Now. It will quickly detect all drivers problems of your computer. Your video card driver is no exception.
  3. Click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system (this requires the Pro version – you’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All).
    Note: You can do it for free if you like, but it’s partly manual.
  4. Reboot your Windows and try to run your game on Steam to see if it works.

Method 3: Verify your game cache files

An corrupted game cache file can also prevent your games from launching properly.

Follow these to verify your game cache files:

  1. Reboot your Windows and run Steam.
  2. Right-click on your game in the LIBRARY section. Then click Properties.
  3. Click VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES… in LOCAL FILES.
  4. It should then begin validating your Steam files and you will see this small window after several minutes:
  5. Reboot your Windows and try to run your game on Steam to see if it works.

Method 4: Close unnecessary programs

Some programs running on your Windows 10 may interfere the performance of Steam. Try to close those unnecessary programs. Then reboot your Windows and try to run your game on Steam to see if it works.

If you’re not sure about which programs you should close, you can take Programs Which May Interfere with Steam from official Steam website as a reference.