One gamer, named Alex, had been waiting for this moment for months. He had pre-ordered the game and was eager to dive into the world of Resident Evil 4 with its improved visuals. But when he launched the game, he was greeted by the dreaded error message.

When you launch Resident Evil 4 HD (Steam App ID 254700), the executable ( bio4.exe or re4hd.exe ) calls upon steam_api.dll to check if you legitimately own the game. If the file is missing, Windows will throw an error: "The program can't start because steam_api.dll is missing from your computer."