Abstract Hard turning is the process of machining hardened steels that have above 45HRC. In metal-manufacturing, hard turning potentially substitutes the grinding process as it possesses lots of benefits like higher metal volume removal rate, less costly, easy to handle, flexible tooling and exhibiting closer surface quality to grinding finish. In the current scenario, plenty of works were reported on hard turning on AISI D2 steel. As hardened D2 steel is popularly used in Die-Punch, Press-tool making industries, automobile industries etc. However, it is worth needed to briefly summarize all the works published on the hard turning of D2 steel. This will provide a platform for the machinist, industrialist, and researchers to further precede their work on D2 steel. In this review work, basically performance characteristics were discussed considering different cutting tools, distinguish coolants and cooling methodologies aspects. MQL works well in hard D2 turning; however, a combination of different coolants like nanofluid, ionic fluid can be utilized in the future. SIC cooling also provides promising results hence it needs to be elaborated more considering different coolants. Also, force and tool condition monitoring can be studied in hard D2 turning using the SIC technique.