A couple of issues

Hello. I’ve been on a break from the game for the last couple of years. Wanted to return with this update but… the only game I’ve managed to play yesterday was the “Loading screens the game”.
Regardless of what official server I’m trying to connect to, I either get into the character creation for about 30 sec before being disconnected, or the loading screen lasts for 5 minutes and then simply sends me back to main menu.
There are 2 possibilities here. Either my laptop is too weak. I mean, I get this message every time I launch the game:

I’ve uploaded the latest driver and installed it. So… I dunno what else to do with this.
The game ran perfectly well before the UE5 update.

What is also possible is that my “wonderful” Russian government blocked some addresses associated with the official servers. I log in without issue to the Funcom service at the main menu and server select menu. The problems start when I try to log into official servers. I believe these are different things. What do you think? What are the options?

Sorry to say, it looks like your GPU may be too low spec. The minimum specs for UE5 version say that you need at least a 1070, whereas the screenshot you shared shows a 1050. If I had to guess, I’d say that is probably the problem (though I certainly can’t rule out government interference - I know you’re suffering some problems with that at the moment - we have a few problems of the sort in my country too, though not currently quite as bad as yours).

You should still be able to play the game on the UE4 version (accessible on steam from the ‘versions’ tab under game properties), but the problem there is that you would no longer have access to the official servers.

I’m sorry that I can’t offer better news.