Dead Island 2 is the sequel to the popular 2011 video game Dead Island, a unique formula of horror, dark humor and over the top zombie slaying. You play as one of six immune characters in Los Angeles, California aka Hell-A and group up with a bunch of survivors hoping to escape the zombie infested city.
The game features skill cards for four categories Abilities, Survivor, Slayer and Numen. You unlock these while playing with each skill card indicating a different ability to use in the game. You can swap out the cards in your Skill deck whenever you want. One of the best parts of the game is Weapon mods, you can turn a simple weapon into a unique deadly weapon. One of the first weapon mods you get is an electric machete allowing you to both electrify and slice off zombies limbs showcasing the new FLESH system. There’s tons of variety when it comes to weapons and killing zombies.
You can unlock the co-op mode by finishing the first few missions in the game where you can either team up with two friends or two random players but the bad news is there is no cross play.
How To Play Dead Island 2 On The Steam Deck
As of now this game is only available on the Epic Games Store so I used the Heroic Games Launcher to play this on my Steam Deck.
- Open up Heroic Games Launcher go to Wine Manager and install Wine-GE-Proton7-43.
- Go to library, click the settings button on Dead Island 2 and select the Wine version you just downloaded Wine-GE-Proton7-43.
Dead Island 2 Steam Deck Performance
Our in game settings could be found on our side bar to the right of this article (if you’re on desktop) or at the bottom of this article (if you’re on mobile).
Make sure to allow the shader precache to load at the beginning of the game. With CryoUtilities installed and my recommended in game settings I managed to get a close lock 40fps with some dips into the mid 30’s. Battery time is over an hour and 30 minutes. And even with most of the settings set to low the game visually looks great on the Steam Deck screen. This is definitely a recommended playable game on the Deck. I just hope for a Steam store release soon.
