If you have third-party antivirus (Norton, Avast, McAfee, Bitdefender) or even aggressive Windows Defender settings, it might be blocking the game.exe or steam.exe from talking to each other.
Windows Defender Firewall may block the game's connection to the Steam client. How To Fix Unable to Initialize Steam API Error unable to initialize steam api
Incompatible graphics drivers or outdated Windows services (like Visual C++ Redistributables) can trigger startup errors. Troubleshooting Guide 1. Administrative Privileges If you have third-party antivirus (Norton, Avast, McAfee,
Here is the "long story" short on why this happens, followed by the solutions ordered from the most likely fix to the most drastic. If you have third-party antivirus (Norton