When I launch the game using DirectX, the loading screen wheel will progress to 100% after 30-45 seconds and then seem to freeze before actually progressing to the start menu/"press any key" screen. The screen continues to play ambient audio and cycle between landscapes/tips, with my mouse icon changed to the menu hand, but will otherwise be frozen for at least 10 minutes. I do not get an error screen telling me what the issue is.
I first encountered this issue on November 11 after not playing for about a month. I tried launching using Vulkan instead of DirectX (this crashes my game immediately), verified the integrity of my game files on Steam, and cleared my local cache. I'm very confused why this is happening and maybe there's an obvious fix I'm just not seeing. Would appreciate any help or ideas people have here.
