FATAL ERROR: Can not init steam

[Son.of.Emo]

Hey all, it's Son. I just bought Amnesia: The Dark Descent off Steam today on my girlfriend's Windows Asus. I'm VERY excited to play it - I've been wanting to play it for years. However, every time I try to open it I get the message "Fatal error - can not init steam". I have absolutely no idea what this means. I'm not very good with computers either. I've checked other threads and the only things that I understood how to do don't solve anything. Whenever I select "run settings launcher" on steam, it loads. But once I try to launch the game it just gives me the same error message. Someone PLEASE help. And try to explain it as simply as possible. I just spent $20, I don't want to have wasted it for nothing. Thanks.

p.s. I also just made a steam account so I'm new to that as well.

The things I attached are the ONLY files I can find for Amnesia on this computer.

[Mudbill]

Hmm, well that error usually appears if the Steam copy of the game is ran manually via its folder executable.

Either way this error has been popping up only recently and I believe it's an issue in one of the recent updates for Amnesia. You can try this temp fix for the time being:
https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/th...#pid352137

You may download that "Amnesia_Retail.exe" file and place it into your Amnesia install folder. Rename Amnesia.exe that is already there to something like Amnesia_backup.exe first, then rename Amnesia_Retail.exe to just Amnesia.exe. This should replace the broken file causing this Steam error. After that, try starting it again. It should be possible by double clicking the files in the folder. I haven't tested starting it through Steam this way.

[Son.of.Emo]

Hmm, well that error usually appears if the Steam copy of the game is ran manually via its folder executable.

Either way this error has been popping up only recently and I believe it's an issue in one of the recent updates for Amnesia. You can try this temp fix for the time being:
https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/th...#pid352137

You may download that "Amnesia_Retail.exe" file and place it into your Amnesia install folder. Rename Amnesia.exe that is already there to something like Amnesia_backup.exe first, then rename Amnesia_Retail.exe to just Amnesia.exe. This should replace the broken file causing this Steam error. After that, try starting it again. It should be possible by double clicking the files in the folder. I haven't tested starting it through Steam this way.

Thank you for the help. I'm unsure on how to rename the files. For the application itself, the name is just "Amnesia" without the .exe at the end. In the description it says "Amnesia.exe" though. So do I just need to change the name "Amnesia" to "Amnesia_backup.exe"? Or is that not right? This is a Windows 10.

[Mudbill]

That just means you have extensions hidden. If you click on "View" in the file explorer, then check the box for File Extensions, you'll see them. But yes, just follow what I said and ignore the extensions if you wish.

[Son.of.Emo]

nevermind it worked. hopefully the error will be fixed, but for now I'll use the retail version.

---

thanks a TON for the help!

[Son.of.Emo]

so the game works and everything with the retail version. It's very fun. But how do I go about installing custom stories? Is there a folder for the retail download? I put the cs's in my steam version folder in the folder "custom stories" but nothing happened.

[Mudbill]

Does the folder have the underscore in the name? It should be named exactly "custom_stories" to be detected. As long as a correctly configured CS is placed in that folder it should show up in the menu in-game.

PS: Just as a reminder that if the Steam copy updates in the future, it's possible that update will overwrite the retail version of the exe file you have, just in case something would seem to suddenly stop working.

[Son.of.Emo]

Thanks but it doesn't seem to be working. The folder is named correctly and I've tried two different cs's.

[Mudbill]

Could you post some screenshots maybe? Also the HPL.log file from Documents\Amnesia\Main.

[Romulator]

Could you post some screenshots maybe? Also the HPL.log file from Documents\Amnesia\Main.

In addition, the resources.cfg file should be useful here too.