As the title says, I turned on the game earlier, everything was fine, then let it do the Incursions update, now it's crashing at launch. Tried to verify/repair the files, and tried a fresh re-install, no luck, same issue.

Any ideas on what I can do about this?

EDIT: It's some kind of shader issue with Unreal itself, from what I can tell. Known issue across various Unreal 5 games.

I would recommend to make a full reinstall of the full game. I usually do not use the patcher but the only time i was using it there was no issue for me.

There is surely always some "issues" as there is rarely any game bug-free and Everspace 2 surely got many bugs left. I still think, there is probably a issue with your install, not actually a issue with the game itself or its patch. Patching is always a sensitive process, especially huge patches, and even the slightest instability during updating may cause the install to break.

I was using the newest Incursions 12 4068 Hotfix 2-version too... so far no problems caused.

Of course this is for the GoG Version, any other version i (and we) can not talk about. As well, i always use Offline-Installers... i guess you was using Galaxy.

Dunno how you did it. Reinstall means, deleting all the old files (except saves), to download all the files again and then reinstall from a freshly downloaded copy.

You may try out this one too (if you use Galaxy): https://www.gog.com/forum/everspace_2/bug_after_patch_ue5_53cl29314046_game_cannot_be_started

There is another possible issue causing it, if you are a Intel-user (mostly), but even AMD can sometimes be affected:

Lower the clocks on 13900K by 200-300Mhz and see if it helps. Intel 14900K/13900K suffer from silicone degradation due to uncontrolled power limits and voltage it's a massive problem for Intel now. People got crashing in all sorts of games because of it - most commonly UE5 games.

If that doesn't help disable XMP profile on RAM and see if it loads then we can rule out RAM that way (but i doubt it's ram personally that generally shows up as blue screen)

If those two will not help then it might be GPU problem. I personally had such an issue in the past, i had crashing in Dark Souls 3 at launch every other game worked fine, i swapped the 980ti for another and it worked. If you've a chance swap GPU for another borrow from friend or smg.

The thing this user was going to tell is, that the Intel CPUs basically are "massive OC out of the box" and combined with a demanding UE5 Engine, which is NOW the case for Everspace 2... your system may become unstable at this point.

This is NOT a UE5 issue, it is a hardware issue that is unable to handle the higher stress this engine is causing.

Intel simply had in mind to beat AMD.... this is what happens if they try so hard. A OC Intel CPU may only last 1-2 years until it will suffer high degradation... and at this point, you will have to lower clocks from CPU and RAM in order to keep your system stable.

Even AMD can suffer from this degradation, but the reason is a bit different: Many board vendors was using way to high SOC volt, up to 1.41 V, but even 1.30 V is way to high (in order to beat each others, those Idiots)... and over time the SOC can become destroyed... slowly. I know the deal because my 7950X was destroyed by way to high SOC Volt. My first destroyed CPU ever... in several decades of gaming on PCs.

On my current system, i never had any issue with a UE5 game, not even one single time, because this system is now almost "bulletproof" when it comes to stability.

7800 X3D (SOC Volt is very low now, the degradation i had on my old CPU is gone)
3090 TI (even slightly OC)
64 GB RAM @5600
Game SSD for Everspace 2: Crucial T700 (exotic... no issue for UE5)