Dark Souls 3 crash issue preventing PC players from going past first Bonfire

There are some nasty crash bugs a few Dark Souls 3 players are facing.

Dark Souls 3 crash issue preventing PC players from going past first Bonfire

The PC version of Dark Souls 3 appears to suffer from stability issues that affect a not insignificant chunk of the player-base. The only problem is, it's not exactly clear what triggers these crashes.

Since going live overnight, negative reviews of Dark Souls 3 started popping up on Steam, most of them referring to constant crashes as a deal-breaker. The same can bee seen on the Steam forums, Reddit, and other social channels, all similarly filled with crash reports.

Crashes usually happen upon lighting the first Bonfire for most players. For others, reaching Firelink Shrine results in a crash. The consensus at the moment seems to link the starting class to these crashes. A lot of reports seem to indicate that picking a Knight results in no crashes.

This doesn't solve the issue for everyone, of course, and so others suggested turning the game's Lighting setting to 'Low', something that's also been widely reported to "fix" the issue.

The Knight class fix in particular was first identified by some media outlets that ran into it during their playthroughs pre-launch. While far from ideal, these should be the first workarounds you could try as we wait for a proper fix.

Namco has not yet issued a statement specific to these crashes, and is directing affected customers to its regular support channels.