Players assume control over two SPARTAN-IV soldiers (Commander Sarah Palmer and recruit Edward Davis) as they defend the colonies of Draetheus V (and its moon, X50) from a Covenant splinter group two years after the end of the Human-Covenant War. Set sometime during the SPARTAN-IV Program, the game’s narrative takes place in historical battle simulations on special datapads (the UNSC Tactical Simulator) aboard the UNSC Infinity. In addition to standard weapons, grenades, and melee attacks, players can also take control of vehicles and stationary turrets. Like traditional Halo games, players control Spartan super-soldiers and fight Covenant forces using a variety of Human and Covenant weaponry. I turned off my wireless Xbox One controller prior to starting the game, and it finally loaded.A spinoff title in the Halo franchise, Spartan Assault is a “dual-stick” shooter originally geared towards mobile devices. I did not have this problem a month ago (the game did not fail to load up when the controller was connected then) and it maybe my controller/ laptop alone, but if all else fails, unplug your game controller before double clicking on your Halo: Spartan Assault short cut icon. I by chance disconnected my "big ben/ xbox 360 controller wired from the USB port" - the game now starts properly (I just plugged the controller back in once game loaded and at settings screen and selected controller option and game is good to go/ does not crash. I tried the above un checking steam overlay as above and tried big picture mode (and non big picture mode) and still, game crashed on start up). Originally posted by flibble29:Having already played it for 50 mins/ 3 levels without issue on my windows 7 laptop (intel HD3000 graphics, 2.4 processor), the game crashed/ failed to load on start up from desktop shortcut and from games library within steam.