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It's been a while since I reviewed Dead Island 2 for the Steam Deck, but the developers recently removed the Denuvo DRM, so I hopped back in to see if there were any improvements to the experience on Steam Deck.

DeadIsland2Stock2

In short, there seems to be a slight performance improvement on the Steam Deck, but that could be because of all the patches between my review in June 2024 and now, rather than the removal of Denuvo. Regardless, I would still recommend you play with the settings mentioned in my review, as the game can still drop below 40 FPS on occasion, even on the lowest settings.

That being said, Dead Island 2 is a good time on the Steam Deck, being both playable and pretty, even on the lowest settings. It does seem, however, that since an update a few months ago, you'll need to use Proton GE in order to play the game on the Steam Deck, or else you will get stuck on a black screen during boot. You can view our guide on how to install Proton GE here.

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Oliver Stogden
Oliver began playing video games at an early age, starting with the SNES console and Commodore Amiga computer. Nowadays, his interest is in the future of portable technology, such as handheld gaming systems, portable power stations/banks, and portable monitors. And seeing just how far we can push these devices.
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