Windows / Steam - Sea of Thieves crashing during gameplay

On occasions you may experience crashes during game play of Sea of Thieves. In an attempt to negate this problem we have listed some possible fixes below which may solve the issue for you. These are:

Check your copy of Windows is up to date

Issues can occur when your Windows is not up to date. To check that you are using the latest version please try the below action.

  1. Press the Windows Key
  2. Type in Check for Updates
  3. Select Check for Updates

Reset your copy of Sea of Thieves (Microsoft Store Version)

  1. Uninstall the game
  2. Press the Windows Key
  3. Type in wsreset
  4. Right-click and select run as administrator
  5. Once complete perform a system reboot
  6. Press the Windows Key
  7. Reinstall the game (Please install the game to your C drive)
  8. Type in Apps and Features
  9. Find Sea of Thieves on the list
  10. Select Advanced Options
  11. Select Reset

Verify integrity of local game files (Steam)

  1. In Steam, right click Sea of Thieves from your games list
  2. Select Properties from the context menu
  3. From the Properties menu select Local Files
  4. Click 'Verify Integrity of Local Game Files...'

Update graphics drivers

When your graphics drivers are either not up to date or suffering from some form of corruption, this can also cause crashes during game play. We recommend that when trying this step that you completely remove you old drivers before updating to the latest versions. To remove your old drivers and then update to the latest:

  1. Press the Windows Key
  2. Type Add or Remove Program
  3. Scroll down the list and find your graphics driver
  4. Click the driver once and select uninstall. Confirm this by clicking Uninstall again.
  5. Once complete reboot Windows
  6. Download the latest drivers from the links below:
  7. Install to the latest driver and then reboot your PC again

Further Troubleshooting

Below we have listed further solutions that we have confirmed have solved this problem for other users. This includes:

  1. Disable Intel Speedstep on your Bios overclock menu
  2. Lower or disable your CPU overclock values
  3. Disable GPU overlocking for your Sea of Thieves game profile on Radeon Software or Nvidia nTune (this applies to custom user overlock settings, not for factory overclock settings of the manufacturer)
  4. Close unnecessary background applications while running Sea of Thieves
  5. Disable any overlays while running Sea of Thieves (Steam, Discord etc)

Please Note: My system is shutting down entirely during game play

If you are experiencing an entire system shut down during game play we would advise that you investigate further in to your own systems hardware and O/S installation as a game crash should never shut down an entire system.

For example, please confirm that your RAM, processor and Graphics card are all running as they should and not overheating (programs such as MSI afterburner can be used to monitor this). Also that your hard drive is operating optimally and with free space.

If none of the above solves your issues please contact Xbox support team at support.xbox.com or the relevant hardware manufacturer.


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