Dead Island 2 launches a week early on April 21 and ahead of that, developer Dambuster Studios has dropped system requirements for the same. As is the case with most PC games these days, you’ll require some fairly heavy hardware to run the zombie-slasher sequel at decent settings. While the minimum memory (RAM) and storage requirements are fairly normal — 10GB and 70GB, respectively — it demands some higher-end CPU and graphics cards to play Dead Island 2 in Recommended, High, and Ultra settings. The FAQ page on the game’s website mentions support for AMD’s FSR2 upscaling methods, which should help with better performance while not sacrificing much on the visual fidelity front.
The spec sheet only details PC requirements for 1080p resolution and above, demanding an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card to run Dead Island 2 at 1080p 30fps. It is among the most popular graphics cards as per Steam’s Hardware Survey, albeit the game will be released exclusively on the Epic Games Store on PC. It’s also unclear whether Dambuster Studios is asking for a 3GB or 6GB version since the AMD alternative Radeon RX 480 comes in 4GB and 8GB variants.
PC requirements to run modern AAA games have gotten quite high, with even the recent The Last of Us Part I failing to run properly on the benchmarks developer Naughty Dog set for themselves. This generally has to do with a lack of optimisation on the platform, as studios continue focusing on the console versions and treat the PC versions as an afterthought.
The Last of Us Part I PC Review
Dead Island 2 PC system requirements
The PC system requirements list comes courtesy of Dambuster Studios, with the common requirements being Windows 10 64-bit and at least 70GB of free storage space on an SSD.
Dead Island 2 ‘Minimum’ PC requirements
- Processor (CPU): Intel Core i7-7700HQ or AMD FX-9590
- Graphics (GPU): Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480
- RAM: 10GB
- Resolution: 1,920×1,080 pixels at 30fps
Dead Island 2 ‘Recommended’ PC requirements
- Processor (CPU): Intel Core i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
- Graphics (GPU): Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super or AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
- RAM: 16GB
- Resolution: 1,920×1,080 pixels at 60fps
Dead Island 2 ‘High’ PC requirements
- Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5-12600KF or AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
- Graphics (GPU): Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT
- RAM: 16GB
- Resolution: 1440p at 60fps
Dead Island 2 ‘Ultra’ PC requirements
- Processor (CPU): Intel Core i7-13700K or AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
- Graphics (GPU): Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 or AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
- RAM: 16GB
- Resolution: 4K at 60fps
After spending years in development hell, Dead Island 2 finally showed its face at Gamescom last year, promising gory zombie-killing goodness on the sun-kissed streets of Los Angeles. That’s right — contrary to the title, the game is actually set in a sunny, fictional version of the city, called ‘HELL-A’. Armed with a ridiculous arsenal of guns, blades, bear claws, and more, you embark on a blood spilt odyssey, laying waste to all kinds of infected. While Dead Island 2 features a co-op story mode for up to three players, it doesn’t support cross-play. The game will be locked to 60fps on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X, and deliver 30fps on the older PS4 and Xbox One consoles.
Dead Island 2 is out April 21, across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.