How to Fix Path of Exile 3.25 Crashing at Old Fields & Oak Fight Error

Path of Exile 3.25 seems to have a prominent error in The Old Fields area and the Oak fight which results in most players crashing.

For the most part, this seems to be related to some broken “war cry” abilities used by enemies. Whatever the reason, nobody likes when games simply crash and prevent them from progressing. Thankfully, there are some potential fixes to help you out while waiting for further official updates.

In this article, we’ll go over various ways to stop the crashing error present in The Old Fields and the fight against Oak.

How to Fix Crashing at Old Fields & Oak Fight Error | Path of Exile 3.25

Restart Your System

As silly as it might sound, we are indeed suggesting that you just turn it off and back on again.

Rebooting your PC or console clears up the system’s memory. This helps if there’s something within the memory that’s causing the game to error out and crash, plus it takes almost no time to try it out. There’s a good reason why this is always one of the first tips for troubleshooting technology!

Besides, relaunching the game will also make the game check for any updates or hotfixes. There are fairly frequent hotfixes for Path of Exile to fix crashing issues such as the error in The Old Fields and the Oak fight, so it’s always good to let the game check for updates.

Change Your Graphics Settings

There are two potential fixes for the crashes that you can do on PC: use Fullscreen display mode and change the Renderer. For either fix, you’ll simply need to click on the “Options” button in the game’s main menu.

First, let’s go over how to change the game to Fullscreen mode. Look for the “Mode” setting in the Graphics tab and click on the drop-down menu. Then select Fullscreen as your display mode.

As for the Render, it’s honestly as simple as changing to Fullscreen mode is. All you have to do is look for the “Renderer” setting in the Graphics tab. It should be DirectX 11 by default, so try changing it to either Vulkan or DirectX 12. Different players report different results with each setting, but Vulkan seems to be the most consistent at avoiding crashes.

Try going through the Old Fields or completing the Oak fight again after these changes and you’ll hopefully have no error resulting in Path of Exile 3.25 crashing!

Avoid the Bonecrunchers in the Old Fields

When it comes to the crashing error in The Old Fields, it seems to be mainly caused by the Hairy Bonecrunchers in the area. There’s a glitch related to their war cry ability which causes the game to crash. As such, your best bet is to simply avoid bears entirely.

To do so, you just need to keep your distance until they are offscreen. If you can’t see them, they won’t crash your game! Alternatively, try to kill them as quickly as possible. They can’t use their war cry and crash the game if you don’t give them enough time to do so.

Mind you, Hairy Bonecrunchers aren’t exclusive to The Old Fields so you might need to apply these strategies whenever you encounter them. For example, Oak seems to use the same war cry effect too. That’s why his fight results in similar crashes… though it’s much harder to keep him offscreen than the Hairy Bonecrunchers!

Nonetheless, this trick to at least help you get through these areas if other fixes don’t work out for you.

Wait for Updates

Alas, if nothing else worked there’s only one thing left for you to do: wait it out. The developers at Grinding Gear Games always seem to have their ears to the ground, so they often fix game-breaking bugs quickly for Path of Exile.

There’s already been some updates and hotfixes meant to help with crashing issues, after all! More are sure to come to help out those who are still affected. But we fully understand how annoying it is having to drop the game while waiting for updates… yet it’s all we can do sometimes.

Once you do manage to get through these annoying crashes in the Old Fields and the Oak boss fight, check out our guide on how the Settlers of Kalguur league works. It’ll help get you up to speed on all of the latest mechanics in Path of Exile 3.25!