Can confirm this bug has gotten worse since the recent patch. It used to load you in and everyone would just stand on or near the tarp on the ground and it would load in correctly sometimes if nobody moved it would load. Now its total black screen with no fix found as of yet.

Same issue playing in Aus was hoping for an improvement the nuisance pre game barge glitch with the patch, got way worse to where I can't play at all now cheers boys 

Starting to piss me off now as a key feature of the game is now unplayable & they haven't even acknowledged it

Start a game.

Go to the ready rectangle.

Get cut scene

Get black screen 

(you can hear foot steps if you try to move.)

Before the patch the behaviour is was the same, but you would progress from the black screen back to the mission start bay, if you stood where the rectangle used to be visible it would then start.

Now if you move forwards about 8 steps the game will start. but with 3 player having to do this and each player having to "walk" blind from slightly different start points the chance of the game starting is slim.  

It does not happen if I join a game in the UK.

​Latest update made the issue even worse when I start an operation the cutscene starts and regardless of whether or not I skip the cutscene it will take me to a black screen 100% of the time. I cannot even play the game and I don't understand why you would allow the bug to persist for this long it's been an issue since early access please for the love of the Emperor patch this damn bug.

just posting here to keep this going. have the exact same issue

Same issue. Black screen until the host drops.
Gotten worse after the latest patch. Now the screen stays black instead of just coming back without a Hud or anything, like previously mentioned.

Happens whenever me or one of my friends, also in Sydney, try to host.
The only work around we've discovered for now is our 3rd friend in Brisbane hosts. Then only one person joins him so he can make a private lobby. They can start the operation and then the third can join after they're in the mission already. 

If all 3 of us are in the lobby when our Brisbane friend tries to start the operation/campaign one of us always crashes.
If either me or my Sydney friend try to start a match with just the 2 of us we get the black screen.

Completely unplayable unless our Brisbane friend is playing with us, and even then he has terrible internet. (Sometimes he has to connect his phone and use mobile data).

Before the patch: I would load a quick operation match, stand on the dropship area and the game would launch, only to be returned to the battle barge with the drop ship missing. I later found out from reading other posts if you walk forward to where the dropship area was (along with another player) the operation would launch.

After the patch: Load a quick operation match, stand in the drop ship area, you'll then see the drop ship cinematic, then the screen goes black and you can hear the ambient noise of the battle barge. 

Using the directional arrows I can hear my character move but have no way of knowing what direction i am facing.

I have tried walking forward for 5 seconds before stopping, then waiting as a steam member had suggested, but I'm guessing that I'm not facing the dropship as I have tried at least 10 times without success.

The only way to exit the game at this point is "ALT F4" or task manager

I have also tried these steps:

1. Uninstalled graphics drivers and reinstalled new ones.

2. Uninstalled the game and reinstalled

3. Verified game files on Steam

4. Reduced graphics to lowest settings

5. Tried with a Non widescreen monitor (in hopes it was just the widescreen support causing the issue)

Im at a total loss, I am unable to play this game which is such a pitty as I was having so much fun!

Guess I will wait until the next patch and maybe it will be fixed?

Makes operations unplayable. Trying to co-ordinate the three people to get into one spot blind. 

It was bad enough we had to figure out how to do it originally. 

I was excited for the new patch hoping it would have fixed the in-between Thunderhawk bug, but no it's much worse now. 

​Same issue we’re loading after the battle barge on Operations crashes you back to the battle barge but now it’s a black screen and don’t one can walk into the area to load in. We may slow the game twice by walking to the right spot but since then if you can’t see where you’re going, sometimes you don’t know where you are, once I walked up a corridor to the right and could see again but haven’t been able to reproduce .