Microsoft Confirms August 2026 Windows Update Is Crashing Some Games, Including ARC Raiders and The Finals

Microsoft has confirmed it is investigating reports that the August 2026 Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 is preventing some games from launching or causing them to crash on affected systems. The acknowledgment now appears on Microsoft's official Windows 11 25H2 Release Health page, which was last updated on August 19, 2026, and is also tracked against the August 11 cumulative update, KB5121003, for Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2.

The company says it has received reports about a limited number of titles, with ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls and The Finals explicitly named. According to Microsoft's Release Health page, affected users see games become unresponsive on Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 devices after installing KB5121003 and later updates. Reported symptoms include games not launching at all, freezing on startup, or crashing shortly after launch.

Microsoft's official statement on the Windows 11 25H2 Release Health page reads: "Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected. We are presently investigating to determine if this is an issue caused by Microsoft. We will provide an update when more information is available." The KB5121003 support article itself currently states that Microsoft is not aware of any issues with the update, but the Release Health page — which is where Microsoft tracks active investigations — lists the gaming crashes as "Investigating" against OS Build 26100.9168.

For players, the practical advice from Microsoft is to file a report through the Feedback Hub app so the company can gather hardware configurations, driver versions and crash logs. Until a fix is pushed, affected players are advised to avoid installing KB5121003 if their setup has not been updated yet, or to roll back the cumulative update via Windows Recovery options where available, while waiting for an out-of-band fix.

The August 2026 Patch Tuesday release was otherwise a substantial security update, bundling improvements to the servicing stack, expanding high-confidence device targeting for new Secure Boot certificates, and patching a long list of vulnerabilities across Windows components. The gaming-specific regression only affects a limited subset of titles, but it lands at a sensitive moment for the three named games: ARC Raiders is in active live-service updates, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls launched recently and is still working through PC performance issues, and The Finals has been one of the most-played team shooters on PC. Microsoft has not yet given a timeline for a fix, but the company says it will share more information as soon as the investigation concludes.

For the latest status, players can monitor Microsoft's official Windows 11 25H2 Release Health page, where the issue is being tracked, and the KB5121003 support article, which will be updated once a fix is published.