Expedition: Into Darkness stuck loading after update (fix)
Written by
Last checked
September 23, 2026
After a patch, the game's loading indicator stops moving on startup; a prompt appears asking whether to keep waiting or close the game, and waiting doesn't help. Verifying game files through Steam doesn't fix it.
Also appears as: expedition into darkness stuck loading screen after update, expedition into darkness won't finish loading, expedition into darkness the game down, expedition into darkness inventory.json, expedition into darkness loading icon stopped
This surfaced after the demo's 1.0.6 update and was corroborated by several players in the same Steam Discussions thread ("The Game Down?"), who all hit the same stuck-loading prompt right after updating. One player relayed a workaround posted in the official Discord by another player: deleting the local inventory.json save file lets the game load again. The tradeoff is real — that file is where the demo's client-side inventory is stored, so removing it wipes your character's items rather than repairing them, which is why several players in the thread were reluctant to do it on a leveled character. Antediluvian Interactive hasn't posted an official acknowledgement of this one, so treat the cause as save-file corruption from the patch rather than a confirmed root cause.
Fix it, step by step
Back up your save folder first
Back up your save folder first if you want any chance of recovering your inventory later, since the only known workaround deletes it.
Delete inventory.json from the local save folder
Delete
inventory.jsonfrom the game's local save folder, then relaunch. Multiple players in the "The Game Down?" Steam Discussions thread confirm this clears the stuck-loading prompt, at the cost of losing your stored inventory.- NoteReported
Verifying game file integrity through Steam did not resolve this for the players who reported it, so it's worth skipping straight to the step above rather than repeating it.
Sorted. Glad that worked.
Nothing worked. Here's what to do next.
You've ruled out every step on this page, which is useful. Send this to support or drop it in the community Discord so nobody makes you repeat yourself.
Hit this error? Leave a comment
Say where you are, what you see on screen, and whether any fix worked for you.
No links. Anonymous, no account. Keep it about the game.
What people are saying
Notes from players who've hit this one — no time limit, an answer from months ago is still an answer.
- Nothing reported here yet.
From isthisgamedownMatched on ""
From isthisgamedownMatched on ""
From isthisgamedownMatched on ""
Other Expedition: Into Darkness error codes
Recently added
- AION 2 "insufficient gameplay record" market listing block
- ARC Raiders error ARMR0014 on Storms and Night Raids
- Enshrouded server exits 0xC0000135 on Windows Server Core (fix)
- Gears of War: E-Day stuck on "Fetching Data" (fix)
- Gears of War: E-Day lucas-gnasher: reward expired
- Gears of War: E-Day reaver-tyrus: can't queue ranked
- Valheim server "App 896660 state is 0x6" after update (fix)
- Valheim Unity crash error (0xc0000005): what to try