- Windows 11 24H2 is seriously bad news for action RPG Path of Exile 2
- Bugs cause the game to bog down and eventually require the PC to be reset
- Assassin’s Creed Origin buyers are also up in arms about 24H2’s problems, review bombing the game on Steam
Windows 11 24H2 has run into more trouble on the gaming front, suggesting that 2025 may not be all that different to last year for PC gamers who’ve installed the latest update for Microsoft’s OS.
At least in the early stages of this new year, anyway, as there are already reports of major problems with Windows 11 24H2 and a new game – issues compounded by a separate development in the form of review bombing of Microsoft and Ubisoft going on in Steam.
We’ll come back to the reviews later, as the main concern here is the fresh bug which has hit Path of Exile 2, and boy, it’s a nasty one, basically locking up the PC entirely according to some reports.
Windows Latest noticed this one, describing several complaints on Microsoft’s Feedback Hub (and Valve’s Steam forums), pointing out that when loading a new area in Path of Exile 2, the game essentially becomes unresponsive in Windows 11 24H2, needing a restart to fix things.
Others say the action RPG is freezing on the loading screen, and then requiring the PC to be rebooted to get the system working again.
There are multiple complaints on Reddit, too, such as this one: “I have seen a few posts about performance issues most specifically when the game crashes in a loading screen and the PC is unresponsive and a reset is required.
“I had no issues with the game until I updated Windows 11 from 23H2 version to 24H2. Apparently it is a widespread issue with the newest build of W11 and causes this to other games as well.”
Or indeed this report, or there’s another here – it seems to be a fairly widespread issue as the comment above notes.
Microsoft is apparently investigating this bug, because as Windows Latest noticed, one post on the Feedback Hub has been flagged with a ‘we’re looking into it’ panel.
Analysis: Path to ruin for Windows 11’s gaming reputation?
What can you do if you’re affected by this? One option for Path of Exile 2 players is to roll back to Windows 11 23H2 and abandon 24H2, although that’s not exactly ideal (as reverting your system to a previous installation is a big step to take).
Rather than go that route, another possible solution as advised on the above Reddit threads is to turn off ‘engine multithreading’ in the game’s options, which apparently resolves the issue entirely. However, it creates another problem in that leaving multithreading out of the mix will seriously slow down your processor’s performance, so you might find Path of Exile 2 is a lot more jittery – but that said, it’ll (hopefully) be stable (hat tip to Jims-Garage on Reddit for this tip). And that might be preferable to rolling back your PC, as a temporary fudge while Microsoft concocts a fix (again – hopefully).
The other possible fudge is achieved via Windows 11’s Task Manager, where you can right click on Path of Exile 2 (while it’s running) and select ‘Set Affinity’ and then disable CPU 4 (hat tip to Embinyu on Reddit for this one). With any luck, one of these CPU-related workarounds might do the trick without destroying the smoothness of the game so much it becomes unplayable.
At this point, gamers are clearly losing faith in Windows 11 24H2. Too many bugs have cropped up with either specific games, or just general jankiness affecting PC gamers – including random crashes – and gremlins in the works with various bits of hardware. It all adds up to a bad taste in the mouth, particularly for Assassin’s Creed players, and other Ubisoft games as well which have been hit hard by glitches with 24H2.
This brings us back to the review bombing on Steam we mentioned earlier, which is happening to Assassin’s Creed Origins (as Windows Latest noticed). This is due to Ubisoft giving it a huge discount (90% off) in the recent Steam sale, luring in a bunch of new buyers – but failing to warn that 24H2 doesn’t play nice with the game.
So, while if you have Origins installed, your PC will be blocked from updating to 24H2 due to the presence of the mentioned bugs, if the situation is reversed – you already have 24H2, but not Origins – you’re out of luck. You’ll be allowed to buy and install the game, and only then will you find out it’s a disaster on 24H2.
Unsurprisingly, Steam gamers in this boat feel they should’ve been warned about the major gremlins in the works with Origins and 24H2 ahead of their purchase, and that’s completely understandable. As one reviewer put it: “Steam says I played for 1.5 hrs, but thanks to Windows that is 1.5 hrs of screen stuck at the game start!”
Assassin’s Creed Origins has an all-time review rating of ‘very positive’ on Steam, but the recent reviews have dropped to ‘mixed’ thanks to the influx of negative feedback from 24H2 gamers.
Is there a risk of this bad feeling starting to spill over and trash the reputation of Windows 11 as a gaming platform? I believe that at this point, we’re at least coming close to that being a reality, and that Microsoft should really be considering bolstering efforts to smooth over issues that PC gamers are encountering with the latest update.
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