How to Fix Trails of Cold Steel 2 PC Crashes and Other Common Bugs

While The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II was released on console back in 2016, it only just hit PC on Valentine’s Day. And despite being bigger and better than its former self, it’s got a long way to go before it truly lives up to PC standards. Why? Because it’s got quite a few bugs, glitches, and issues as of this writing. 

While the recently released Patch 1.1 tried to address some of the game’s worst crashing issues, this guide highlights some of the biggest bugs people have come across while trying to run ToSC2 on PC. 

Ymir Hot Springs Crash/DLC Outfits Crash

This is the biggest issue that people have been experiencing, with crashes mostly happening the first time a party entered the hot springs — although it would also happen in the spa and any other areas that required minor outfit changes. 

The main reason for this Trails of Cold Steel bug was that the game was not playing nicely with non-default and DLC outfits equipped to characters. And while Patch 1.1 was released primarily to fix this particular issue, it appears that there are still some instances in which the DLC outfits crash the game. 

If you are still running into constant crashes when you enter places like this, switch out of the DLC outfits and retry. If you are running into an eternal loop of crashing, you could revert to a previous hard save, but the game regularly performs autosaves and you might be better off reverting back to an autosave in order to lose the least amount of progress.

General Crashes/ed8.exe Crashes

This is another issue Trails of Cold Steel players have been experiencing en masse. To get around this bug, make sure your computer is updated.

To avoid this crash: 

• Run Windows Updates
• Check for any new Steam updates
• Check your Steam game cache (Right click > Properties > Local Files > Verify integrity of game files)
• Update/repair vcredist (find this in your SteamLibrary > SteamApps > common > Trails of Cold Steel II > _CommonRedist > vcredist > 2010 > run both and if they don’t complete, it’s already up to date – move on to the next one)
• Update your AMD or NVIDIA graphics drivers  

If you’re still having trouble, lower the game’s MSAA to 2x. 

Crash on Startup 

Sometimes, Trails of Cold Steel II won’t even start up. Instead, the screen goes black for a few seconds before disappearing, taking you back to the Steam screen. 

I had this problem myself, and the fixes from above didn’t work (or at least the above alone). What I did do was downgrade the game’s graphics quality, regardless of what I know my comp can handle. That helped. I’m running it at a weird resolution, but it runs and it’s not ugly. 

Also, try running the game in full-screen mode on PC to iron things out. 

Long Load Times/Crash While Loading Into Battles

Specifically, this glitch refers to loading cinematics and cutscenes, as well as when you come in and go out of new areas and battles. Some players are getting two- to three-minute long waits for these transitions to load. Others are crashing during those load-ins.

While the game is super-sensitive about alt+tabbing while you’re in game, try doing it during the fade-out sequence. When it loads back in, some players have reported it kickstarting the battle to load.

As for the wait times, try decreasing your game settings. Some players, particularly on laptop, are reporting the game using their integrated GPU instead of the one the game is supposed to be running on. Since there’s no real option using the configuration tool to use specific hardware, the only easy solution at the moment is to cut down on the resources it needs. 

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If you’ve got other issues that you can’t find a fix for, leave a comment below. If you’ve got some fixes or better suggestions, let me know too! I’ll be keeping an eye out (plus working through my own frustrations) the same as you. If you have a really good fix, we’ll add it to this guide!