New World’s first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, brought a wave of fresh content to the MMO, from armor and mounts to weapons, a new zone, and more. Yet, it also included an unwelcome surprise: a frustrating bug.
Players have quickly found themselves trapped at the Amazon Games logo after opening the New World client, facing a white screen of death. The good news is it can be fixed.
How to fix white screen error when launching New World
To fix the white screen issue during New World’s launch, here’s what you need to do:
- Navigate to the ‘%appdata%/AGS/New World‘ folder on your computer.
- Once you’re there, open the folder and erase all the files inside.
- Next, head over to ‘%localappdata%/Temp/AGS/New World/shaders‘ and clear out everything in there as well.
- With those folders emptied, restart the game client.
These steps should help you get past that troublesome white screen quite quickly. It was the official fix mentioned by the New World developers on Oct. 11, so it comes straight from the horse’s mouth rather than most trial-and-error guides.
If the issue persists, there’s one more option you can try, but it’s a bit of a gamble. The devs also suggest uninstalling and then reinstalling New World as a final attempt to fix the white screen error. However, it could take a long time to do depending on the speed of your internet connection, and there’s no guarantee it will work.
So, depending on your install speeds, it may not be worth the trouble.
As frustrating as it may be, know you’re not alone in this struggle. Many New World players are in the same boat. Some are facing other issues too, which likely means the developers will be rolling out a hotfix at some point in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the steps outlined above are your best shot at fixing the problem and diving back into the game hassle-free.