Is Dead Island 2 playable on Steam Deck?

It’s finally the month of Dead Island 2, as a decade of development finally comes to an end for publishers Dambuster Studios. The newest entry in the zombie-killing series comes to players on April 21, 2023, and will be available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and PC. While console players don’t have much to worry about, fans on PC have some questions regarding the accessibility of Dead Island 2.

Namely, PC fans want to know where the game will be available and if it will be a launch title for Steam Deck, the handheld PC from Valve. You can find out all that we officially know about a possible Dead Island 2 Steam Deck release in the guide below.

Is Dead Island 2 coming to Steam Deck?

When Dead Island 2 launches on April 21, it will be arriving as an Epic Games Store exclusive title. This means that players on PC will only be able to download and play the game from the Epic Games Store application, and not anywhere else.

Of course, this includes Steam, which is a devastating hint to those hoping to play Dead Island 2 on their Steam Deck. Since the game will not be coming to Steam, it will not be an officially supported title for Steam Deck at launch. A Steam release date for Dead Island 2 is highly likely in the future, which means that it could eventually become supported for Steam Deck. We have no confirmed knowledge of when Dead Island 2 could come to Steam and subsequently Steam Deck, though.

How to play Dead Island 2 on Steam Deck

While Dead Island 2 will not be officially supported through Steam Deck’s native OS, players can potentially work around this by downloading Windows onto the handheld PC. This process is relatively straightforward, but we recommend watching a YouTube video, like the recent one from TA Tech, to fully understand what to do.

Once players have Windows installed, they should be able to download the Epic Games Store application and then purchase Dead Island 2 from there. The main issue that players could run into, however, is getting the game to run well enough to warrant spending $60. We are currently not sure how Dead Island 2 will run on the last-generation consoles or PCs with older hardware, which is usually a strong indication of how a game will run on Steam Deck at a lower resolution and settings.

We suggest players wait a couple of days after launch to see how the game performs, especially on PS4, Xbox One, and older PCs, before purchasing Dead Island 2 for themselves on Steam Deck.