How to fix the God of War Ragnarok black screen on PC

When a heavy-duty console game gets ported to PC, there’s bound to be hiccups that don’t quite sort themselves out. For God of War: Ragnarok, one of the biggest is the black screen of death on startup.

If you’re unlucky, you might not even see the infamous PSN login requirement that turned players away before you’re hit with a solid black wall. Otherwise, you might find yourself stuck on the second startup after having already played for a while.

Whether you’re crashing on the black screen or simply stuck in an unresponsive window, here’s how to fix the black screen in the PC port of God of War: Ragnarok.

How to solve the black screen on God of War: Ragnarok on PC

1) Basic troubleshooting and general housekeeping

The first things to do are generally good troubleshooting practices you should go through for any kind of bug or issue with your PC. Sometimes, you won’t have a deep-rooted problem so much as a small hiccup in the system somewhere.

The best way to know is to go through the basic checklist:

• Restart Steam
• Restart your PC (ideally with a 30-second pause between shutdown and startup)
• Update your graphics drivers
• Verify your game files
• Run both Steam and the game as administrator
• Restart your PC again after all the above

If that still doesn’t solve your God of War issues, you could try a clean uninstall/reinstall. However, since Ragnarok‘s a whopping 190GB install, your time might be better spent trying the other fixes before strapping in for an hours-long download.

2) Find and delete the “userpreferences” file

Normally, losing all your game settings is a pain. In this case, the file that keeps your settings configuration might be the culprit behind the black screen issue. Navigate to where your save files are hosted; it’s most likely in the path “OS/users/(your pc username)/Saved Games/God of War Ragnarok/(random number).”

If you’ve already saved a few times, you’ll find your save files labeled as “GOWRSAVE” alongside the “userpreferences” file at the bottom. Delete it and try to start up the game—while you might have to re-configure your game, it should be running properly.

A more thorough version of this fix involves backing up your save files to another location, then deleting the original folder. If you’re trying this, just make sure not to lose your backed up files.

3) Limit or disable online connection

Still having issues? Your game might be having issues with its attempts to stay online. Why this would result in a black screen is baffling, but many users have reported simply turning off their internet before starting the game somehow fixed the issue.

Obviously, this isn’t an ideal fix—you might need or want internet connection in the background for any number of reasons. If you’d rather not brute force the issue by going completely offline, there are two things to try: Limiting the game’s access through settings or blocking it with your firewall.

Limiting your Ragnarok game only works if you’re able to get to the main menu before hitting the black screen. If the problem keeps coming back after you’ve saved and exited the game after deleting “userpreferences,” try these steps:

1. Back up your save files and delete “userpreferences” again.
2. Start the game, click through the initialization settings before you get to the “Allow Data Collection” window. Set it to “Limited” instead of “Full.”
3. Save your settings, then exit. If you removed your save files from the folder, put them back. 
4. Do not delete “userpreferences.” This will reset your data sharing settings.

You should be able to play normally without having to fix it every time. If this doesn’t work, go a step further by blocking it through your firewall’s inbound/outbound settings:

1. Navigate to your firewall settings on your PC.
2. Go into the “Advanced Settings.”
3. Go to “inbound rules,” then click “New Rule.” 
4. Check “Program Rules,” then set it to the GoWR game file (found in your steamapps/common folder), then select “Block the connection.” 
5. Keep everything checked in the “profile” step, then name the rule something clear so you can easily find and disable it later if needed.
6. Do the same in the “outbound rules” tab. 

Once you’re done, your firewall will prevent GoWR from accessing the internet. If your issue was with network connection, this will usually solve it for good. 

4) Change your graphics settings

There is a chance your black screen problem is a graphics compatibility issue. If none of the above fixes work and you’ve already had to troubleshoot Ragnarok refusing to use your dedicated GPU (or otherwise mis-detecting your PC specs), you may want to try reconfiguring the compatibility settings. 

• Find the GoWR exe in “steamapps/common/God of War Ragnarok.
• Right-click and open the “Properties” window, then go to the “Compatibility” tab.
• Check the box for “Disable fullscreen optimizations” (as well as “run as administrator,” if you haven’t already).
• Save your changes, then exit and open the game from the .exe directly.

If that fixes things, make a desktop shortcut of the .exe so you can access it quickly.

And if none of the above works, you may have to buckle down for a fresh reinstall. Keep in mind that your mileage with any of these fixes may vary depending on your system specs—if your PC is below or just barely meeting the minimum specs for Ragnarok, there’s nothing much to do but wait for a better optimization patch or get a hardware upgrade.