How To Fix Elden Ring Easy Anti Cheat Launch Error

Elden Ring, the most hyped title which has gathered the best rating ever on Opencritic is now available on Steam. A title that took quite a while to hit the markets, so far the game hasn’t been free from problems.

AAA titles having problems is not something new, every single game announced last year was full of problems. Elden Ring is no exception, locked FPS, performance issues and crashing is prominent. Some users are getting the “Easy Anti Cheat is not installed” or “Failed to initialize the game launcher”. As the message says, it has something to do with Easy Anti-cheat, which the game uses.

Update: We have a 100% working solution now. Thanks for the detectives at Reddit.

What is Easy Anti Cheat?

Easy anti-cheat is software that helps to prevent cheating in online games. It can be used to detect and ban players who are using cheats in order to gain an unfair advantage. Easy anti-cheat is a popular solution for online gaming communities, and it is used by many popular games like Fortnite.

Now that you know what the program is, let’s find out how to fix this problem:

Fix Elden Ring Easy Anti Cheat Launch Error

Now, much is known about what is causing this issue, but here’s what worked for me, I did all these things, just to let you know:

Download Missing EAC Files or Run the Game in Offline Mode

This error comes up because EAC files are missing for your installation.

• Download these files
• Extract the rar file
• Press Windows + R and type “%appdata%”
• Open “EasyAntiCheat > Game Launcher” folder from the Window that opens up
• Past the files that we had extracted earlier
• Now verify your game files using Steam or try launching the game directly through the game exe called “start_protected_game.exe“

Disable Easy Anti-Cheat

You can disable Easy Anti-Cheat completely to fix a multitude of problems. To do so:

Add a file called steam_appid.txt and add “1245620” to it and put it where the Elden Ring.exe is located. Then launch the exe directly, don’t launch it through steam. You won’t be able to play Elden Ring online, but EAC will be disabled.

Verify Your Game Files

There may be times when your game files on Steam get corrupted. This can cause the game to not work properly or not work at all. In order to fix this, you need to verify the game files. This process will scan through the game files and fix any corrupted ones. To do this, follow these steps:

1. First delete the files located in “C:\Users\Your Username\AppData\Roaming\EasyAntiCheat\GameLauncher”
2. Open Steam and click on the Library tab.
3. Right-click on Elden Ring and select Properties.
4. Click on the Local Files tab and then click on the Verify Integrity of Game Files… button.
5. Steam will start verifying the game files and will fix any corrupted ones it finds.

Restart Your Computer

If you’ve just installed the game, there might be a possibility that the game is unable to initialize the Easy Anti Cheat module. Restarting might fix this.

Disable Antivirus & Firewall

Antivirus and Firewall programs are made for your safety. But they can end up blocking a lot of important software and programs too. What you can do is disable or whitelist the game’s exe file and try launching the game again.

Update: Someone on Reddit posted this video which has solved the issue for some users. It requires you to migrate some files.

This worked for an older title that uses EAC. It might work for you too. I cannot test this because I am not facing this problem anymore.