Stuck at Loading Screen - can hear and FPS drops (POE2)

Good day,

I have been unable to play since 11/15/25 , though I can login and access settings and view my characters. I was playing previously.
I have the steam client
Windows 11 24h2
Poe2 0.3.1d
Washington DC (but server doesn't matter - I have tried Texas as well)
I click login.
Says authenticated in lower left corner.
I see my characters.
I choose ANY character.
I get the load screen.
After some amount of time I hear the game as if it is working and my fps drops as if in game but the load screen does not disappear.
I am able to cycle the hints.
I hear my goblins and I hear portals open and people move and NPCs talk but the load screen never disappears for me to move or play.
I have tried CTRL-Enter on a character as well.
I have verified files.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled.
Restarted PC multiple times.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled to a new drive.

Not sure it matters but I am able to login and play path of exile with no problem.

Thanks for any help in getting back in game.

Have you tried to change from Vulkan to DirectX12?

I had the same issue few days ago and I solved it doing that.

Thank you,
This fixed the problem.
I was unable to swap to dx12 it only crashed. I was able to swap to DX11, then back to dx12.
It seems that Vulkan was the issue.
Were you able to swap back to Vulkan?
I swapped to Vulkan from DX12 because I got much better performance.

thanks, it solve it by change to dx12