For the last 3 or 4 weeks, this game is crashing when you shoot down a Riot Drone in Co Op with Clan Kelley.

I start a Solo Co Op, i spawn a Riot Drone after I shoot it the Whole game freezes and I have to CTRL ALT DEL and shut down the game.

Sometimes I get a Windows Blue Screen error as well. but most of the time it freezes?

It only happens in Co Op Mode, in online freeplay it wont crash when you shoot the Riot Drone.

Is there a Fix for this?

I have been playing for 3 years, ive never had this problem before 3 or 4 weeks, I think it started since Season 10....
I also have verified my files which are in working, and re-booted my PC as well.
I also have no arguments in ubisoft properties launcher for the game

@ransom1122 I had a similar issue, the game often freezed or crashed after a very specific action in the 1st coop mission, when I punched the upper closed circuit terminal to unlock a door with my G36 rifle in hands. For me it happened only in DX12 mode. Never happened in DX11 mode for some reason. I still don't know why it happened. My theory was that either DX12 renderer of the game is broken (lots of crashes online) or DX12 shader cache was broken. So every time the game tried to show a specific effect using specific shader from cache it crashed.

So my advice would be, try to switch DirectX renderer and see what will happen when you destroy a riot drone in co-op, or try to clean shader cache for Watch Dogs: Legion (I can say how to do it if you have an AMD card).

BTW, to switch renderer fast without constantly restarting the game add an argument -DX11 or -DX12.

@KenTWOu It does look like DX11 fixes the problem... But with that You cannot use Ray Traycing and I have been playing with everything enabled on a 4090 card in 4K and never had the issue before...

I'd prefer to use DX12 as I like playing with Ray Traycing in HDR Mode

Maybe upon each new season there are changes that break the game... Especially shooting a drone in Co Op with DX12, just wont work

Maybe upon each new season there are changes that break the game... Especially shooting a drone in Co Op with DX12, just wont work

Look. I can shoot Riot drones (enemies' and spawned) in the 1st co-op mission in DX12 mode, no crashes. I can punch that terminal I mentioned, no crashes either. I don't know what it is, but it's not new season that causes it. It's just DX12 render became broken probably after one of the last updates, and they don't care, because they stopped supporting this game.

So try to clear shader cache IIRC it fixed my 'closed circuit terminal' crashes, but didn't fix others.


I'm playing online since season 3 on a daily basis. I played it via GFN - Nvidia streaming service, played it on an old AMD card, old i5 CPU, on RX6600 and Ryzen 3600 now. DX12 online is broken. I can play single player with ray tracing enabled and got reasonable performance (60+ fps, my resolution is low), and have 0 crashes. But as soon as I start online: lots of crashes, especially in those coop missions. Sometimes it will crash after 3 hours, sometimes after 10 min. Sometimes it just closes, sometimes it freezes, sometimes freezes, but you still can hear sounds. Sometimes it crashes in a more serious way. But it's like 1-2 crashes a day for me on GFN, on my own PC, for all my friends with Nvidia cards who spend tons of time online.

I tried to find a pattern, so I had a huge 'Excel' worksheet file where I tried to type in all crashes I had, exact moment and circumstances that led to a crash. For example, on GFN it often crashed when you're getting inside a car for some reason. I tried different settings, lowest ones, highest ones, RT, no RT, tried to turn off subtitles, music, other settings. Nothing helped. It's so random. Like a memory leak or something. Online is just unstable in DX12 mode. That's it.

Two things I can say for sure, completing all 8 coop missions in a row from Dysfunction to Red Blade and not having a crash in DX12 mode is almost a miracle. If it didn't crash during missions, it will crash shortly after in London free roam. And only in DX12 you got agents pics corruption, so may be that's related somehow.

Meanwhile, my last crash in DX11 mode was months ago. It's so rare.


I don't know, man, may be you'll find the exact reason of your crashes and find a way to fix this game or at least find a workaround (I hoped that there will be tons of new players thanks to Steam release, and someone will solve this problem, or at least Valve finds something while porting the game to Proton/Steam Deck), but... no luck.

@KenTWOu Cab you tell me how to clear shader cache?

I'm hoping it's something different to renaming the cache folder and restarting in dx12

Right, It seems Ray Tracing Enabled is the culprit, When RT is enabled in DX12 it Crashes when shooting a Riot Drone. When disabled it works.
Hence why DX11 worked immediately , because DX11 doesn't support RT and has it off as default.

So for anyone out there with high end tech, simply diable RT if your game crashes when shooting Riot Drones in CoOp mode

Can you tell me how to clear shader cache?

I don't know how to do it on Nvidia cards. if you had an AMD card, I could tell you specific folder for DX12 games and filename for Legion shader cache.

Right, It seems Ray Tracing Enabled is the culprit, When RT is enabled in DX12 it Crashes when shooting a Riot Drone. When disabled it works.

By the way, I tried to shoot Riot Drones in co-op with ray traced reflections enabled, no crashes.