I just tried launching the sequel as a test and it crashed on me too. I don't use Steam and I've never had the client installed.

**********************************************************************

Unity Player [version: Unity 5.5.3p1_b27954c0d351]

steam_api64.dll caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)
in module steam_api64.dll at 0033:3d4c840a.

Error occurred at 2020-06-09_104022.
J:\Games\GOG\Life is Strange - Before the Storm\Life is Strange - Before the Storm.exe
33% memory in use.
16380 MB physical memory [10924 MB free].
32764 MB paging file [24835 MB free].
134217728 MB user address space [134212988 MB free].
Read from location 00000000 caused an access violation.

Context:
RDI: 0x19c083c0 RSI: 0x19f8e0f0 RAX: 0x00000000
RBX: 0x000ba784 RCX: 0x80000002 RDX: 0x00000004
RIP: 0x3d4c840a RBP: 0x012fec30 SegCs: 0x00000033
EFlags: 0x00010246 RSP: 0x012feb00 SegSs: 0x0000002b
R8: 0x000ba784 R9: 0x00000006 R10: 0x155bad78
R11: 0x3e1fae40 R12: 0x1a017c80 R13: 0x0470b230
R14: 0x012ff470 R15: 0x0fd45cb0

Bytes at CS:EIP:
48 8b 08 4c 8b 41 08 ba d2 03 46 7f 48 8b c8 41


Module 1
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\xinput1_3.dll
Image Base: 0x00400000 Image Size: 0x0001e000
File Size: 107368 File Time: 2007-04-04_195422
Version:
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Product: Microsoft® DirectX for Windows®
FileDesc: Microsoft Common Controller API
FileVer: 9.18.944.0
ProdVer: 9.18.944.0


== [end of error.log] ==

Tested on a whole new pc, different cpu fx8300< r9 380x gpu<
Still refuses to launch and support is a joke. Never buying another game on here.

Life is Strange doesn't launch for me either. I don't get an error message, the game simply fails to launch. Using GOG Galaxy or not makes no difference. I don't have Steam.

Things like that are the exception. Usually GOG games work even better than the Steam version ^^

Something anyone can try.

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type command prompt, press and hold (or right-click) Command Prompt, then select Run as administrator > Yes.
2. At the command prompt, type sfc /scannow (note the space between sfc and the /). Scanning will take a few minutes.
3. If SFC finds corrupted files and replaces them, restart your PC and check if the issue persists.

Also emphasising what mistacorvin said: Install Microsoft Visual C++, all of them if you must. 2008, 2012 (those were additionally installed at the end of the setup), 2013 and 2015-2019.

I actually installed both games on two 5 year old laptops (Win 10 1903, 4GB RAM, i5 2GHz/2.6GHz, Intel HD) in hope the game would on one of them not start or crash. But it worked, I didn't play the game cause they were about to take off but for what it's worth it worked.
And trying to solve problems you can't recreate is really tricky.

I think what has annoyed me more than anything is the fact that GOG have not even bothered to say anything about this either here on the forums or via support so those of us who can't get the game to start are left in limbo wondering whether a patch for the game is being worked on or not.

I did notice that this problem first reared it's head in the Steam forums in 2015(!) so I'm guessing there's no easy fix which is possibly why GOG are keeping quiet. That's no excuse though.

Anyway, I'm now going to put in for a refund. Hopefully that won't be ignored too...

Sorry, the SFC check came back clean. I have already repair installed Visual C++ per communications with GOG support.

Would you happen to know what locations the game expects those dlls (i assume dlls) to be in? The Galaxy install has a redist folder with folders for a few different MSVC versions, but all are empty. No such folders exist in the offline backup install. I downloaded the 2019 installer from MS.

It strikes me as odd that the game would need several different VC++ runtimes, and that I wouldn't already have them installed since my Windows install is 5+ years old. One would think the game should be looking for them in some directory inside System32, yes?

Do you know the specific .dlls required? e.g. msvcp140.dll, etc?


I wonder if someone who has one machine where the game works and one where it doesn't could compare the contents of their System32 directories, specifically the presence of various msvcpxxx.dlls...

May it be the 2004 update of Windows 10?

So I compared the msvcp DLLs in System32 between my working an nonworking machines, and I found five that were different. I replaced four of them on my nonworking machine but that didn't seem to help. One of them, msvcp140_clr0400.dll, won't let me modify it. I get a trusted installer access error if I try and rename or move it.
I tried uninstalling KB4497165 and KB4452931 for the heck of it. They were the two most recent updates before I noticed the problem on Friday. Didn't help.

Interesting. You can right click the files and click Properties and then go to the Details tab, where there is a Product version number. Is that what you're referring to when you say dlls are "different" between your two machines? Or just different file sizes? For msvcp140_clr0400.dll, I'm at version 14.10.25028.0.

I'm curious if we can maybe find a correlation between different versions of these dlls and working/non-working states of the game.

You mean the folders in ...\GOG Galaxy\Dependencies\__redist ? Mine aren't empty, there's an executable for every version from 2008 to 2017. I would assume it's looking for them in System32 tho, it's where the msvcX.dll are.

No clue, msvcp110.dll I assume from the posts in this thread.
I would recommend, if not done already, uninstalling every single Visual C++ version and reinstalling them. You can get an All-in-One installer on GitHub.

Same here I recommend uninstalling every single Visual C++ version and reinstalling them. You can get an All-in-One installer on GitHub. Thus you will have the latest version for all of them. I takes like 2 minutes.

Windows Defender gave me an alert of a severe trojan on that github link.

Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!ml