Recently, players remembered Dead Island 2 again. Publisher Deep Silver removed the infamous DRM protection Denuvo from the project in October 2025.
It is noteworthy that the hacker Empress cracked Dead Island 2 a couple of years ago. Players on the Steam forum have long called for the removal of DRM.
Many people liked Dead Island 2 itself — the game has "mostly positive" reviews on Steam, with a rating of 77%. Some of the negativity was associated with Denuvo, as well as the use of Epic Games services.