Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Crashing [FIXED]

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is the direct sequel to the long-standing Yakuza series. Players online, however, have recently been clamoring about the game crashing on startup.

These crashes can be caused by a multitude of reasons including launcher problems, files being corrupted, antivirus problems, among others. It’s become a frustration for most players as they are unable to try out the game with the constant crashing. Don’t worry though, if you’re one of these players experiencing these crashes then I have prepared a list of solutions below to help you get back on track with your gaming.

Verify Game Files

Game files come pre-installed whenever you download a game as without them, the game cannot run at all. Occasionally, however, game files can become corrupted or go missing and this leads to the game being unable to carry out some of its functionalities. Luckily, most game launchers offer a built-in tool to verify the integrity of game files.

So, to find out whether any of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s game files have been corrupted or gone missing leading to it crashing, you need to verify the integrity of the game files.

Switch To Windowed Mode

A recent trend I’ve noticed in the newer games being released is that, due to a lack of optimization, games cannot configure themselves to run properly in any other display other than Windowed mode. Whether this is a mistake on the developers’ part or just an issue associated with PC gaming as a whole, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth suffers from the same issue.

So I recommend you to go into the game settings and switch the display to Windowed Borderless Standard HD. This should hopefully allow the game to close out of Gaiden and open up Infinite Wealth, as it also did for players online.

Whitelist The Game In Antivirus/Defender

When downloading a game, your Windows Defender and Antivirus software scan the game’s files to find any malware. This is a very useful feature that keeps your system safe, however sometimes these software mistake game files as harmful to your system and place them in Quarantine. In the Quarantine section, these files can’t be accessed by the game and this leads to various errors including game crashing.

So, to avoid this, I recommend you whitelist Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth in your Antivirus/Defender directories. By whitelisting the game, it bypasses any security check so no files will be removed. Afterward, start up the Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth again and see if the crash has resolved. 

Run Game As Administrator

The crashing issue in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth may also be caused due to the game not having enough system privileges to be able to run all its features. This may, in part, be due to the game not being run as Administrator. By running the game as Admin, you’ll be able to give it all of the special privileges it needs and it won’t be restricted by your system from accessing certain files. 

This, in turn, will allow the game to start up without crashing if lack of privileges was indeed the issue causing the error. So be sure to try it and see whether it has any effect.

Switch To English Language

In my playthrough of the demo for Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, I noticed that the default language setting of Japanese was causing constant issues in the game. Perhaps, due to bad coding on the developers’ end, the Japanese language pack interferes with the game files and causes constant crashes.

I was, however, able to fix this issue by simply switching the language setting from Japanese to English, after which I didn’t experience any crashes. Whatever code issue is causing the Japanese language pack to crash the game, I hope the developers resolve it before the game’s release as I, as well as many other people, prefer the Japanese voiceovers to the English ones.

Download The STR8 Mod

There’s a mod from Nexus Mods, called the STR8 mod, available for download to the public that allows you to launch the demo straight from the startup.exe file, thereby bypassing the game launcher. This mod has proven to be very useful in resolving the crashing issue for Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth as the game launcher is the culprit for the crashes in most cases.

Follow the steps below to download this mod yourself and run it:

1. Download the mod from the Nexus Mods website.
2. Once downloaded, make sure to unzip the mod in the same folder as the game.
3. Now, simply run the mod by clicking on it.

This should allow you to launch the game without any problems.

Contact Support

If none of the above fixes happened to resolve the issue for you, then your only option left is to contact the official SEGA Support team and explain to them the crashing you are experiencing in detail. They should, hopefully, be able to help you resolve the crash for good.

My Thoughts On Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Crashing

The constant crashing being experienced while playing the Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth demo has certainly taken the fun out of the game for many players including me. However, this is just a demo so I have high hopes for the actual fully released game to be free of these problems. But as a community that loves the Yakuza franchise, it’s up to us to report these errors to the developers so that the final product is as polished as possible.

To keep up with and report these issues of Infinite Wealth, you should stay up-to-date with the various gaming forums of the game including Reddit, Steam Community, GameFAQs, Paradox Forums, and many others.

So far, the developers have not addressed the crashing issues, most likely due to it being only a demo but be sure to keep track of RGG Studios’ Twitter/X page for more updates on Infinite Wealth like this one:

LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH is launching January 26, 2024 and available for pre-order now!https://t.co/fg0xKUgqNc

Players at the Tokyo Game Show are getting the first hands-on, but a Special Trial Version will be included in LIKE A DRAGON GAIDEN. Don't miss it! pic.twitter.com/PJp26eYoX4

— RGG Studio (@RGGStudio) September 21, 2023

Meanwhile, I hope this guide helped you resolve the crashing error in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth.