Multi-monitor problems are the least documented part of any Unreal Engine release, and Dreadmoor is no exception. The demo is built on Unreal Engine 5, ships on Windows through Steam, and has no published support statement about display handling. What follows is therefore a diagnostic order rather than a guaranteed fix — and it is written to tell you which layer is failing, not to promise a patch that does not exist.
What is actually confirmed
Three facts matter before touching anything:
- Engine. Dreadmoor is an Unreal Engine 5 game, confirmed on the engine, voice and AI page.
- Platform. Windows PC through Steam, with no console version announced — the platform status page tracks that.
- No support statement. Nothing published by Dream Dock or Digital Vortex addresses multi-monitor setups, ultrawide ratios or resolution locking.
Everything below is standard Unreal and Windows behaviour applied to that situation. None of it is an official fix.
Step 1: fix the primary display first
Most "wrong monitor" launches are not a game bug. Windows decides which display is primary, and Unreal titles generally open there — or on the display where they last ran.
- Right-click the desktop and open Display settings.
- Select the monitor you actually want to play on.
- Enable Make this my main display.
- Launch the demo again.
If the game still opens on the secondary screen, the engine has remembered the old window position. The next step resets it.
Step 2: toggle window mode
Alt+Enter switches between windowed and fullscreen in most Unreal builds, and the switch forces the engine to re-enumerate the available displays and resolutions. Two or three toggles is often enough to shake a stuck 800×400 or 1280×720 mode loose.
This is also the fastest way to find out whether the game is locked to a bad resolution or simply rendering on the wrong output: in windowed mode you can drag the window to the correct monitor and then return to fullscreen there.
Step 3: force a windowed launch
If the game will not stay on the right screen long enough to change anything, start it windowed from Steam:
- Right-click Dreadmoor in your library and open Properties.
- Under General, find Launch Options.
- Enter
-windowed.
The game then boots in a window you can move, and the resolution can be set from inside it. Remove the flag once the correct mode is saved — leaving it in place means you relaunch windowed every time.
Step 4: check what the resolution list is offering
A resolution list that is missing your monitor's native mode points at the graphics driver rather than the game:
- Update the GPU driver, then relaunch.
- Disable DSR, DLDSR or virtual super resolution while testing — these expose resolutions the game may pick by accident.
- If the correct mode appears in Windows but not in the game, try a different cable or port; a link that is negotiating below its rated bandwidth can hide modes.
The published system requirements are modest, and nothing in them suggests a display limitation — this is a configuration issue, not a hardware tier issue.
Step 5: unplug the second monitor — as a test
Disconnecting the second display is the fastest way to prove where the fault sits. If the game behaves perfectly with one monitor attached, the problem is display enumeration, and you can work around it while waiting for a patch.
It is not a fix, and it is worth saying plainly: a game that requires you to unplug hardware to launch is a bug, not a configuration you should accept permanently.
What to do while waiting
- Keep the second monitor connected but set to Extend, not Duplicate — cloned displays report a shared mode and confuse fullscreen enumeration.
- Launch from Steam rather than a desktop shortcut so launch options actually apply.
- If you play on a handheld or a TV, the Steam Deck notes cover why the demo is not Verified there, and the controls page lists the settings worth changing once the display is stable.
One last expectation to set: display bugs in demos often survive into Early Access. The build that launches on November 9 is the same engine generation, and unless the patch notes say otherwise, assume the workaround still applies.