How To Fix Dying Light 2 Crashing on PC (2026 Reloaded Edition)

Dying Light 2 Stay Human (now the Reloaded Edition after Techland’s major 2024 overhaul) still crashes on PC for a lot of players — on startup, mid-gameplay, or when loading a save. The most common culprits are DirectX 12 conflicts, VRAM memory leaks with ray tracing enabled, outdated GPU drivers, and corrupted game files. This guide covers every proven fix, ordered from quickest to most involved, so you can get back into Villedor without CTDs.

Check That Your PC Meets the System Requirements

Before troubleshooting anything else, confirm your hardware can actually run the game. Dying Light 2 is demanding, especially with ray tracing. If your system falls below the minimum specs, no software fix will help — you’ll need a hardware upgrade. As of 2026, here are the official requirements from Techland:

Component	Minimum (1080p / 30 FPS)	Recommended (1080p / 60 FPS)	Ray Tracing (1080p / 30 FPS)
CPU	Intel Core i3-9100 / AMD Ryzen 3 2300X	Intel Core i5-8600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X	Intel Core i5-8600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
RAM	8 GB	16 GB	16 GB
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti / AMD RX 560 (4 GB VRAM)	NVIDIA RTX 2060 (6 GB) / AMD RX Vega 56 (8 GB)	NVIDIA RTX 2070 (8 GB)
OS	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10
Storage	60 GB HDD	60 GB SSD	60 GB SSD

If you’re right at the minimum, expect instability at higher settings. An SSD is strongly recommended even for minimum-spec systems — Dying Light 2 streams assets aggressively, and an HDD can cause hitching and crashes during fast traversal.

Verify Integrity of Game Files

Corrupted or missing game files are the single most common cause of crashes, and this is the fastest fix to try. After the Reloaded Edition update and subsequent patches, partial downloads or interrupted updates can leave files in a broken state.

On Steam:

1. Open Steam and go to your Library.
2. Right-click Dying Light 2 Stay Human and select Properties.
3. Click the Installed Files tab.
4. Click Verify integrity of game files.

On Epic Games:

1. Open the Epic Games Launcher and go to your Library.
2. Click the three dots next to Dying Light 2.
3. Select Manage, then click Verify.

This scans every game file against the server version and re-downloads anything that doesn’t match. It typically takes 5–10 minutes depending on your drive speed.

Force DirectX 11 Mode (Fixes Most Startup Crashes)

DirectX 12 is the default renderer in the Reloaded Edition, but it’s also the source of most startup crashes and mid-game CTDs. Many players — even those with high-end GPUs — report stable gameplay only after forcing DX11. There are two ways to do this:

Method 1 — Edit the config file:

1. Navigate to C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\Documents\dying light 2\out\settings\.
2. Open video.scr in Notepad.
3. Find the line containing RendererMode.
4. Change "D3D12Ultimate" or "D3D12" to "D3D11".
5. Save the file and launch the game.

Method 2 — Delete the runtime DLL:

This is a developer-acknowledged fix. Navigate to your game’s install folder (default: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dying Light 2\ph\work\bin\x64\) and delete runtime_dx11.dll. Despite the confusing file name, removing this file forces the game engine to fall back to a more stable rendering path and has resolved startup crashes for many players on the Steam forums.

If you later want to switch back to DX12, just verify your game files through Steam to restore the deleted file.

Delete Your Settings Folder to Reset Graphics Config

If the game crashes before you even reach the main menu, a corrupted settings file is likely to blame. This is especially common after a major game update changes available settings.

1. Close Dying Light 2 completely.
2. Navigate to C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\Documents\dying light 2\out\settings\.
3. Delete the entire settings folder (or rename it to settings_backup if you want to preserve it).
4. Launch the game — it will regenerate fresh default settings.

Important: these settings files persist even after reinstalling the game, because they’re stored in your Documents folder, not the game directory. If you’ve reinstalled and still crash, this is almost certainly why.

Update Your GPU Drivers

Outdated or corrupt GPU drivers are a top cause of game crashes across the board. Both NVIDIA and AMD release game-specific driver optimizations, and running a driver more than a few months old can cause instability with patched games.

For NVIDIA GPUs: Download the latest Game Ready driver from nvidia.com/drivers. Consider doing a clean install (check “Perform a clean installation” in the NVIDIA installer) to wipe out any corrupted driver remnants.

For AMD GPUs: Download the latest driver from amd.com/support. Use the Factory Reset option in the AMD Software installer for a clean slate.

After installing new drivers, the game will need to recompile its shader cache. This can cause stuttering for the first 15–30 minutes of gameplay — that’s normal and not a crash. Let it finish before judging stability.

Increase Your Virtual Memory (Page File)

Dying Light 2 has a known VRAM memory leak, especially with DX12 and ray tracing. When the game runs out of VRAM, it falls back to system RAM and then to your page file. If your page file is too small (or set to “System managed” on a small drive), the game will crash with no error message.

1. Press Windows + R, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.
2. Go to the Advanced tab → click Settings under Performance.
3. Click the Advanced tab → click Change under Virtual Memory.
4. Uncheck “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.”
5. Select your system drive (usually C:), choose Custom size.
6. Set Initial size to 1.5× your RAM (e.g., 24576 MB for 16 GB RAM) and Maximum size to 3× your RAM (e.g., 49152 MB).
7. Click Set, then OK, and restart your PC.

This gives the game a larger safety net when VRAM spills over, preventing silent crashes during long play sessions.

Disable Ray Tracing and Lower Graphics Settings

Ray tracing in Dying Light 2 is notoriously demanding and has been linked to memory leaks since launch. Even on RTX 3080 and 4070-class GPUs, players report crashes after 30–60 minutes with ray tracing enabled. If you’re crashing mid-gameplay:

1. Turn Ray Tracing off entirely.
2. Lower Resolution to your monitor’s native resolution (avoid supersampling).
3. Set Texture Quality to Medium if you have 6 GB VRAM or less.
4. Reduce View Distance and Fog Quality — these are the biggest VRAM consumers after ray tracing.

If the game only crashes when you can’t access the settings menu, edit the video.scr file manually (see the DirectX 11 section above for the file location) and set the relevant quality values to their lowest option.

Close Overlays and Background Apps

Software overlays are a frequent source of conflicts with Dying Light 2’s renderer. Close or disable these before launching:

• Discord overlay — Settings → Game Overlay → toggle off
• GeForce Experience overlay — Settings → General → toggle off In-Game Overlay
• Steam overlay — Right-click the game → Properties → General → uncheck “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game”
• Xbox Game Bar — Windows Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar → toggle off
• MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner — Close completely from the system tray
• RGB software (iCUE, Razer Synapse, Armoury Crate) — These often hook into DirectX and can cause conflicts

Also close web browsers (especially Chrome, which eats VRAM), media players, and anything else that isn’t essential. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and check the Processes tab for anything using significant GPU or memory resources.

Run the Game as Administrator

Some crashes stem from the game not having sufficient permissions to write to certain folders or access hardware directly.

1. Navigate to the game’s install directory and find DyingLightGame_x64_rwdi.exe (the main executable).
2. Right-click it and select Properties.
3. Go to the Compatibility tab.
4. Check “Run this program as an administrator”.
5. Also check “Disable fullscreen optimizations” while you’re here — this eliminates another common source of DX12 conflicts.
6. Click Apply, then OK.

Perform a Clean Boot

A clean boot starts Windows with only essential Microsoft services, which helps isolate whether a third-party app is causing the crash.

1. Press Windows + R, type msconfig, and press Enter.
2. Go to the Services tab, check “Hide all Microsoft services”, then click Disable all.
3. Go to the Startup tab and click Open Task Manager.
4. Disable all startup items in Task Manager.
5. Restart your PC and launch Dying Light 2.

If the game runs stable in a clean boot, re-enable services in groups of 5–6 at a time, restarting after each batch, until you find the conflicting service. Common offenders include antivirus software, VPN clients, and hardware monitoring tools.

Add Antivirus Exceptions

Windows Defender and third-party antivirus programs sometimes flag Dying Light 2 files — particularly anti-cheat components — as suspicious and silently block them, causing crashes with no error message.

Rather than disabling your antivirus entirely, add the game’s install folder as an exclusion:

For Windows Security (Defender):

1. Open Windows Security → Virus & threat protection.
2. Under Virus & threat protection settings, click Manage settings.
3. Scroll down to Exclusions and click Add or remove exclusions.
4. Add the full Dying Light 2 game folder (e.g., C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dying Light 2\).

For third-party antivirus (Norton, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, etc.), check your software’s documentation for adding folder exclusions. If you’re unsure whether antivirus is the issue, temporarily disabling real-time protection and testing the game is a quick way to confirm.

Reinstall Dying Light 2

If nothing above has worked, a clean reinstall may be necessary. The key word is “clean” — just uninstalling and reinstalling through Steam doesn’t remove everything. Here’s the thorough process:

1. Back up your save files from C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\Documents\dying light 2\out\save\.
2. Uninstall the game through Steam or Epic Games.
3. Manually delete the remaining game folder from your Steam library directory.
4. Delete the entire C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\Documents\dying light 2\ folder (this removes settings, shader cache, and config files that survive a normal uninstall).
5. Reinstall the game onto an SSD if possible.
6. Restore your save files to the save folder after the first launch.

Still Crashing? Check These Last Steps

If you’ve exhausted every fix above and Dying Light 2 still crashes, a few final things to try:

• Install/update Visual C++ Redistributables and DirectX: Download the latest Visual C++ Redistributables from Microsoft (both x86 and x64 versions). Also run the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. Missing or outdated runtime libraries cause crashes that look identical to game bugs.
• Check Windows Event Viewer: Press Windows + R, type eventvwr, and look under Windows Logs → Application for red error entries timed to your crashes. These often reveal the exact DLL or driver causing the fault.
• Report the crash to Techland: If you’re getting consistent, reproducible crashes, submit a bug report through Techland’s official support portal with your crash logs (found in the game’s install folder) and DxDiag report. Techland has been actively patching the Reloaded Edition through 2025, and crash reports directly influence their hotfix priorities.

In most cases, forcing DX11 mode and verifying game files resolves the issue. The DX12 memory leak has been a persistent problem since the Reloaded Edition update, and while Techland has improved stability with each patch, DX11 remains the more reliable option for players who prioritize stability over ray tracing as of 2026.