NFS Unbound not opening / starting

Hello world!

I am facing an issue regarding NFS Unbound. I can't open it. Just like that.

When pressing the 'Play' button on Steam, game goes into 'launching' mode, then the EA app opens as a pop-up like thingy, with the message 'Preparing Game' and then it closes and then opens again the full EA app and the games remains closed. After some inspection the game opens for a brief second or so as a 'Background process' not like a normal app(as viewed from task manager), witch is odd.

note - I play from Steam, I bought every DLC from steam, and I am using a laptop with more than recommended specifications, I also can play and open other games like CS, LiarsBar and also nfs most wanted, I also tried opening EA FC 25 demo and it works just fine. Also important to mention, the game worked just fine until a week ago, I went in a vacation and when I got home it didn't work anymore

I have tried the normal troubleshooting: restart of laptop, check updates - all ok, check via steam integrity of game files - all good, uninstall and reinstall, the game and the EA app, more restarts nothing.

Then I checked with EA support, they provided the same troubleshooting I did above plus some links to check some errors but I don't get any soo I moved forward, and something about cache files from the EA app, I did the recovery thing, tried again, nothing, restart the laptop, nothing.

Restart again, open everything with 'Run as Admin' - nothing.

Then I started looking in this forum and I saw a lot of players with this issue, they came up with some fixes yet none that helped me, at some point I found a long thread from 5mo ago yet no fix from there also.

I am starting to think this is a server side bug.

Could you help me fix this pls?

Thx!

bug

technical issues

11 Replies

FaneMagnificul
New Rookie
4 months ago
Hello players!
I come with a small update on this issue.
Yesterday 12.03.2025, the game worked. Weird, no explaination, it just worked, 99% normal with the small issue that the loading screen in the game when starting a race took so long that I could not choose/select cars to play with, I was assigned random cars.
And then today, 13.03.2025 it stopped working, same issue, can't launch the game.
It has been 3 days since I have opened this forum post, I made a case to EA help and nothing, the guys there didn't provide any explanation or any help, they just told me that they reported this issue to some team that takes care of this kind of bugs, but no progress shown to the client(me), no explanation why this is happening, no real answer, no real problem that explains this issue.
I am deeply disappointed with this, I had problems with games, but Steam always has good support and takes care fast, with EA, is not the same.
Can someone please provide some help or at least some explanation for this issue?
Thank you!
FaneMagnificul
New Rookie
4 months ago
Hello!
I saw that EA_Illium responded in many post regarding this issue, could you help me please?
Thank you!
Driver1174
Seasoned Newcomer
2 months ago
I'm having the same issue
FaneMagnificul
New Rookie
2 months ago
Hello!
After 2 months no response or resolve, yet somehow it works now, not always, but sometimes it does. I don't know what the issue is, how it started or what the solve was...
AxiomZero74
New Novice
2 months ago
Same issue here. and if i am able to get it to launch it has a bunch of other issues while playing before it crashes and then back to not launching. i definitely think its a server/EA issue
Hairmony
Seasoned Newcomer
2 months ago
Same here, except very rarely, it opens the game but then after I press a button to start it just crashes.
gdog090
Seasoned Novice
2 months ago
and then i just played heat
support suck same promble also got mirror's edge and cant install it no support from ea
FaneMagnificul
New Rookie
29 days ago
Hello!
It again started to appear more often, this problem is kinda huge as it seems in this thread already there are a lot of players with this problem and still nothing to help us. Is there a dev team around or someone from server side team that could help us here?
Thank you!
PS: I saw this tags that look important as in team "codemaster" in hoping that an higherup could help us here thx again!
Hoobiechoobie FerrhOe clappy_NHL EE_kalyn
QGamer707
Rising Rookie
29 days ago
Hello FaneMagnificul, Driver1174, AxiomZero74, Hairmony and gdog090,
For me the game wouldn't launch either, but it did after adding the "Excalibur" folder (the folder which contains the game files) to the exclusions from Microsoft Defender Antivirus scans.
You can all do this by opening Microsoft Security then click on "Virus and threat protection". Next click on "Manage settings" located under "Virus and threat protection settings". Afterwards scroll to the bottom and click on "Add or remove exclusions". Then click on "Add an exclusion" then click on "Folder" then locate and select the "Excalibur" folder (for me its location was D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Excalibur) and then click on "Select Folder" and then try running the game. Don't worry if it doesn't launch the first time, for me it takes a couple of times but eventually it launches.
I found this solution here (fourth comment by encrypt) https://steamcommunity.com/app/1846380/discussions/0/594022553707636991/
I hope it works for you all as well.
tchokaaa
17 days ago
AYOO, IT REALLY WORKS AND HELPED ME! TYSM BRO GOD BLESS U