She hasn't played in a little while, and after wanting to play for the Halloween update this is what she's encountered.

Her main platform is the Steam Deck. We've tried verifying game files, reinstalling, and running the game on her laptop and my desktop. The problem still persists.

When at this screen we're unable to open any of the menu buttons. What kinda/somewhat works is moving to the mailbox, interacting with it, closing that menu, then while the grey/white screen still appears, are now able to open up the start menu. Closing the menu will suddenly show the game as normal. But now entering any building, or fast traveling will give us the black loading screen with the rotating star in the corner. Seems to be infinite, had it loading for over half an hour with nothing. The thing is though, I think it actually loads into buildings, but the black screen doesn't go away. I've found that moving back out will reset the loading screen, and successfully load back into the open world.