Aside from Electronic Arts’ continued support of so-called “surprise mechanics” in their sports titles, and the never-ending crime against humanity that is Bethesda’s Fallout 76, few things in the world of gaming are as widely reviled as Denuvo anti-piracy software. Originally developed in 2014 to serve as an additional form of digital rights management, it quickly gained infamy as reports of in-game performance issues (and all sorts of ancillary problems) began to spread. This has prompted many publishers to either remove the software from their titles or forego it entirely, and, just recently, Arkane Studios saw fit to liberate the Steam version of one of their best games from its debilitating grip.
Released in 2017, Prey was a successful—albeit relatively controversial—reboot of the 2006 FPS original. Playing like a spiritual successor to the long-stagnant System Shock series, its blend of RPG, Stealth, and shooting mechanics was a breath of fresh air in the AAA space, and though it had virtually nothing to do with the original, Prey 2017 was a must-play for fans of the studio.
That said, the Steam version of the game came with one major caveat. Although versions of the game available through GOG or Xbox Game Pass didn’t suffer the same fate, Steam’s download demanded Denuvo’s installation, which was perceived by many to be one big middle finger to fans of Valve’s service.
To make matters worse, the game’s DRM was cracked within a few days of its release, meaning that its inclusion was largely useless and served as nothing more than a headache for buyers. In fact, Reddit Community Manager u/slenderf0x made mention of this in a recent post on the Prey subreddit which officially stated that a July 23rd patch had removed Denuvo. “It was … cracked within a few days of launch though,” the poster stated, “so it didn’t stop piracy by that much.” Also, while Denuvo Software Solutions has denied accusations of performance issues in the past, u/slenderf0x refutes this, stating that “the software has a subtle effect on performance, since it’s a part of the main dll that controls the game logic.”
It’s worth mentioning that this was more-or-less par for Denuvo, with games like South Park: The Fractured but Whole, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, and Fifa 18 all cracked on the same day as their release, and titles like Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2, and Soul Calibur 6 having their DRM bypassed within their release week.
While it may not seem significant for a publisher to back away from the controversial software three years after a game’s release, this news comes in the wake of several other high-profile publishers ditching Denuvo. Most notably, the March 2020 launch of Bethesda’s Doom Eternal was met with controversy thanks to its use of the service. Yet, while the publisher had planned on including a new Denuvo multiplayer anti-cheat system, fan backlash prompted them to remove it less than a week after it was initially implemented. Crucially, Arkane themselves have disincluded the software from some of their more recent titles. In 2018, it was announced that Denuvo had been removed from Dishonored 2 and a franchise spinoff title Death of the Outsider.
We don’t quite know what the future holds for obtrusive forms of DRM such as Denuvo, but at the moment, it certainly seems like they are on the way out. Though we have to pray that it doesn’t appear in future Arkane Studios games, the recent removal feels like a win for those who will no longer put up with anti-piracy measures that seem to be more anti-consumer than anything.
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