This is basically a cry for help at this point. I know that these forums aren’t the best way for help, but I’m all out of options.
TL;DR - FH4 ran just fine on release. Uninstalled, and attempted to reinstall this July - game is 100% unplayable beyond splash loading screens. I have now built an entirely new PC, and through trial and error, ruled out all potential hardware and software issues causing the game not to load. Throughout my struggle for the past 4 months, I have received essentially zero help from Forza support, with 4 tickets sent, one unresolved with a useless reply, and 2 that have been opened by staff and left unresolved with no feedback. I’ve done everything I can and I just want help, feedback, something.
So here’s the extended scenario!
I purchased FH4 very shortly after release, and as a first racing-esque game since childhood, I actually enjoyed it a lot despite some small bugs here and there. However, as most games go that you play a ton, it’s not surprising if you get burnt out after several months of constant play. Around January of this year is when I uninstalled for a bit. The game originally ran with very few issues ever, and my old i5-6600k handled it well. Come this summer in July, I get with my friends and we decide we wanna play FH4 again for fun. My friends don’t have any issues with their game, however - my game will launch to start screen, and run benchmark tests at any quality, flawlessly. But as soon as I start up the game by pressing continue - about 15 seconds, and instant crash. This wasn’t caused by a hardware issue at all - albeit my build was old and in need of updating, 16GB of RAM and a 1060 6GB is more than enough. I debated if things were a software issue, and sent in a ticket for review.
Over the past three and a half months, I have went down a massive list ruling out possible issues causing my game to be entirely unable to run beyond the start screen. As of today, I’m running on an entirely new PC build with a Ryzen 7 2700X, 2 completely fresh SSDs, and a new set of RAM. As of this point, and by doing this, I have ruled out all hardware and software issues within my reach. Hardware is not an issue, and if I cannot run the game on a fresh drive with only Windows 10, GTX drivers and a copy of the game installed, I have nothing else I’m capable of trying. All of my variables are ruled as non-factor.
Now, this wouldn’t all be an issue, if I was receiving help and having someone look into this for me! It’s a tough situation and I definitely need help. However, it appears to me that the support team for Forza in general is… to put it nicely, a miserable experience. As of the past 3 and a half months, I have submitted four tickets- all with no help whatsoever. I received a response within 2 days on my very first ticket - it ended up being the publicly accessible “Known Issues” page on the website, copy-pasted, obviously helping me none knowing I had already tried everything there. Since replying to that ticket, and the other tickets being sent in, I have sent in a .diag file to aid the issue. The first ticket was not resolved. Two of the other three tickets have been opened, received no response, and left open with no help or feedback. I can understand a busy time with assisting tickets, but I haven’t received any feedback at a bare minimum for the tickets I have that are left open and unresolved. Since I am playing on PC, I have already contacted Microsoft Support, and they are just as powerless as I am - they can only send in a ticket. And as wonderful as Playground Games is - they have no publicly available way to be contacted, personally requesting their attention. I almost feel like I’m being ignored at this point, and after putting in a decent amount of money into FH4 being as I’m rather passionate about it and quite enjoy it, it burns me up inside to sit for several months, completely unable to play.
If anyone has anything, whether it be reassurance that I am not the only one experiencing this issue, a potential fix that I have (somehow) not tried yet, or a way to get ahold of SOMEONE at support, please… give me anything. I wanna enjoy this game.