GOG, formerly Good old Games, which CD Projekt Red recently sold to the platform's original co-founder, has stuck to its convictions on DRM-free game publishing, with its latest release, Control Resonant, coming to the platform with no DRM and with the typical downloadable game files that GOG provides. The game also features native cloud saves on GOG Galaxy. The DRM-free launch of Control Resonant comes just over a month after the game's initial launch on Steam, and both the standard version of Control Resonant and the Deluxe Edition are available on GOG. Other versions of Control Resonant on PC use standard Steam DRM.

[Editor's note: Our handheld performance review and in-depth review of Control Resonant are now live]

Denuvo DRM software has always been controversial at best, and it has recently become fairly common practice to remove it from games following their launch, as was the case with 007 First Light, whose developer removed Denuvo from the game a mere two months post-launch. In the case of Borderlands 4, rumors started circulating that Denuvo has been removed from the game as of an October 22, 2026, update. This change has not yet been confirmed by 2K Games or Gearbox Software, however.

Reports of Denuvo disappearing from Borderlands 4 started with Borderlands creators @EpicNNG, who was previously responsible for the Borderlands Online revival and @lewisØn, and were later seemingly confirmed by @ExploredFiction, who inspected the contents of the Borderlands 4 game files. SteamDB itself doesn't directly note the removal of Denuvo, but the game's binaries are 171.69 MB smaller in the latest update, and several packages have been removed from the game files. While there is no hard benchmarking data to prove it, there are currently reports that the game runs faster without Denuvo running in the background.

Denuvo anti-tamper protection has recently been struggling with a surge of game cracks appearing almost immediately after, and sometimes even before, the launch of the latest AAA games. In extreme cases, such as with Silent Hill: Townfall, cracks have appeared days before the official release during the pre-release period. However, this trend seems to be changing. With the release of Star Wars: Galactic Racer, the game is reportedly resisting a classical hypervisor-based workaround that was previously used to bypass the company's anti-piracy measures in many new game titles. As readers might recall, this racing game launched on October 6, but as of today, no successful bypass using the established method has emerged.

The hypervisor workaround takes advantage of virtualization technology that operates below Windows, allowing it to interfere with how a protected game detects certain system features without directly removing Denuvo's checks from its executable. Its relative simplicity helped make it a practical alternative to more labor-intensive cracking methods, with reports attributing successful bypasses across more than 60 games to this approach. The latest development suggests that the technique may no longer work as reliably against newer implementations of Denuvo.

The Xbox Disc-to-Digital licensing program recently launched to insiders, effectively paving the way to a discless future for Xbox, while still allowing the brand to market its console as backwards compatible. Following just over a month of public testing, Microsoft has just announced that the Disc-to-Digital program has officially launched for everyone, not just Xbox Insiders.

The launch also comes with some updates and a more robust support page that details a few notable features, terms, and conditions. Most notably, it seems as though the Disc-to-Digital licensing is not guaranteed. Microsoft notes that "Not all Xbox One or Xbox Series X game discs are eligible for disc to digital licensing. Eligibility may change over time, and varies due to technical, licensing, publishing, manufacturing, and other factors," suggesting that games may be added and removed from the program at Microsoft's whim. In the announcement post on X, the fine print also notes that all digital game licenses are revokable.

The latest sequel in the legendary Silent Hill series, called Silent Hill: Townfall, has been cracked days before its official release, even during the pre-release stage. Today, the game has been made available to players who purchased the €59.99 Silent Hill: Townfall Deluxe Edition, allowing them to experience the title before its general release. However, hackers have wasted no time pirating the game, as it has already been cracked by the infamous "RUNE" group, known for bypassing modern digital rights management software. The group managed to crack Silent Hill: Townfall and make it fully playable, aided by the absence of advanced DRM layers like Denuvo, relying solely on Steam for protection.

Officially, the game is scheduled for release on September 24, just two days from now. That's when regular players can start their gameplay journey through Steam, where the game is priced at €49.99. The game is developed by Screen Burn game studio and published by the legendary KONAMI, which has supported the franchise since its inception, along with Annapurna Interactive. The game follows Simon Ordell as he returns to the remote island of St. Amelia in 1996, only to find its fog-covered town seemingly deserted. This first-person psychological horror experience combines exploration, stealth, and combat as Simon uncovers the island's dark history and his own connection to it. Players will also use an unusual CRTV device to uncover clues and fragments of the past while solving story-driven puzzles.

Denuvo has sued an anonymous game cracker known as "voices38," accusing them of bypassing its Anti-Tamper protection in at least 26 PC games. TorrentFreak first reported on the complaint, filed September 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Denuvo wants monetary damages plus an injunction barring further circumvention of its DRM, including in games that haven't even been made yet. Denuvo doesn't own the copyrights to any of the games listed, so this isn't a copyright infringement case. It rests instead on the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, which prohibit bypassing digital locks placed on copyrighted works.

Named titles include Hogwarts Legacy, Black Myth: Wukong, Resident Evil Requiem, and Doom: The Dark Ages, though voices38 has apparently kept cracking games since the filing, with Persona 3 Reload and Star Wars Outlaws reportedly added to the tally. The tricky part is that Denuvo has no idea who voices38 actually is. The complaint names the defendant only as "an unknown individual or entity," alongside ten unnamed Doe defendants, pointing to Reddit, Discord, and Steam accounts it believes may be linked to the activity. Denuvo will likely need to subpoena those platforms to get anywhere close to an identity, and there's no guarantee that works out. The case is still in its early stages, and none of Denuvo's claims have been tested in court yet.

Dead by Daylight, the co-op survival horror game from Behaviour Interactive, will soon switch from Easy Anti-Cheat to Denuvo Anti-Cheat as a trial following a recent community survey, according to a recent announcement by the game studio on the game's Steam Store page. One of the biggest takeaways from the community survey was that players felt that the studio "could be doing more" in order to curb cheating in the online game. As such, it plans to temporarily switch anti-cheat providers in order to determine the effectiveness of an alternative solution.

Currently, Dead by Daylight uses Easy Anti-Cheat with Linux compatibility mode enabled, but on September 2, the Steam version of the game will switch to Denuvo as part of what it is calling the Anti-Cheat Trials. The idea is to test alternative anti-cheat systems, and the developer encourages players to play the game normally and report cheaters as they would usually. The game will automatically prompt players to install Denuvo Anti-Cheat when the trial starts, and players will not be able to access the game without installing it.

IO Interactive released its AAA title 007 First Light on May 26 this year, surprising players with the inclusion of Denuvo DRM. However, after just two months on the market, IO Interactive has officially removed this DRM layer from the game. SteamDB has tracked this change, meaning the official Steam version of 007 First Light is now DRM-free. This is great news for gamers, as Denuvo DRM and similar solutions have been widely criticized by the gaming community for impacting performance and introducing various quirks and restrictions. For benchmark enthusiasts like us at TechPowerUp, DRMs often impose restrictions on hardware changes, so the removal of DRM is now much friendlier for those who upgrade their PCs or run tests.

As a reminder, IO Interactive announced the inclusion of Denuvo DRM just six days before the game's official launch. This came as a surprise to those who pre-ordered the game, as the company hadn't announced it before pre-orders began, leading many gamers to consider canceling their orders. However, now that Denuvo DRM has been removed, they no longer need to worry about potential issues, and the game is officially DRM-free. Putting the DRM controversy aside, 007 First Light has received 89% positive reviews in the last 30 days, indicating that the game is performing well. With restrictions lifted, the reception may become even more positive over time.

Halo: Campaign Evolved game was cracked just four days before its official release. A group of hackers claims that their version runs smoothly on Windows without needing a Microsoft or Steam account. The game, developed by Halo Studios under Xbox Game Studios, was protected by Microsoft's DRM software, but hackers still managed to crack it. With no Denuvo DRM, the crack was released quickly. The official launch is scheduled for July 28, but those who pre-purchased the game on Steam have early access. To play, users must link their Microsoft account and sign in to their Steam account, even for solo gameplay. However, those running a cracked version don't have to deal with linking the Microsoft account and the slew of problems that are now arising. Importantly, those with broken Microsoft account linking can only enjoy the cracked version, as Microsoft DRM on the regular game is preventing them from even starting the gameplay.

Early reviews, however, are not promising. Many users are leaving negative feedback, with only 68% of reviews being positive at the time of writing. The main issues include login failures, overloaded servers, and connectivity problems when the email address used on Steam differs from the one linked to the Microsoft account. Some players have been stuck on the Digital Artbook menu, which only disappears after uninstalling the Artbook DLC, allowing the game to boot normally. For a $49.99 games can get Standard Edition when the game launches in four days, but those who purchased the $69.99 Premium Edition can get early game access since this morning. Microsoft's server are already showing signs of trouble, so it might be smarter to wait until these issues are ironed out.

The OpenTools Open Printer is a new open-source hardware project that spawned in response to expensive, predatory designs from traditional printer manufacturers. The philosophy behind it is that it is a "repairable, compact, and robust printer designed to last," and according to an announcement and preview video by CrowdSupply, it seems as though the Open Printer will be launching on the crowdfunding platform soon. It uses off-the-shelf parts to make repairs easy, and it prints on paper up to A3 in size, but can also accommodate a paper roll that is as wide as an A3 sheet's short edge 297 mm.

The Open Printer will use refillable ink cartridges, and it will be able to print on a variety of paper formats, including paper rolls. It features no DRM and is built on open-source firmware, and the makers have published both the firmware source files and the electronic and mechanical design files under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, meaning users are allowed to freely use and adapt the printer's design files as well as build projects based on it, as long as they share their projects under the same license and don't use the resources for commercial purposes. All parts that are not off-the-shelf will be able to be 3D printed, which again plays into the repairability aspect, since if something breaks, it is easy to replace.

As promised in a previous announcement, Embark has officially started rolling out Denuvo kernel-level anti-cheat in Arc Raiders on May 19. The roll-out is limited, so not all players will receive it on May 19, but after testing and feedback, it will eventually roll out to all players. The developer is careful to note that the controversial Denuvo DRM—often blamed for performance regressions in some games—has not been included and that special attention will be paid to the performance impact of the new anti-cheat system.

The response to the updated anti-cheat system seems to mostly be positive, since players have been calling for Embark Studios to do something about the cheaters in Arc Raiders for a while now. In the Steam Community discussions and a post on r/ArcRaiders following the update, however, there is still an outcry for a dedicated PvE mode, which has been a common request since the developer started to emphasize the PVP part of the PvPvE game. Alongside the anti-cheats system, the new update adds a host of fixes and quality-of-life changes, as well as a new weapon, a new trader, more customization options, and an option to block players after reporting them.

News recently broke about a new DRM system Sony had seemingly silently implemented in the PS5 that would make buyers of digital games go online every 30 days to validate a license or potentially be locked out of their games until they could access an internet connection. Now, according to some research done by andshrew on the ResetEra forums, it seems as though it's not quite as simple as that. As it turns out, going online to validate the DRM license may only be a requirement for the first 14 days as an attempt to avoid users buying a game and then refunding the game and playing it anyway in offline mode using some exploit—at least that is the current speculative explanation, since Sony is yet to address this debacle publicly.

The explanation in the ResetEra forum post details the full methodology, but essentially, what the user found by comparing two copies of the same game purchased on two separate PSN accounts, once before the new requirement and once after, is that Sony is now issuing a 30-day license for the first 14 days and swapping that license out for a perpetual license after the refund period has lapsed. This would mean that, after Sony's DRM server has been able to validate the license once after the 14-day refund period is over, there will be no restrictions on offline play, as is usually the case with console games. This somewhat resolves some of the issues that have been brought up surrounding this DRM feature, but it still may present issues for those who are not able to connect to the internet more than 14 days after purchasing a game—this is especially true, since there is no clearly visible notice about this DRM feature on Sony's site at the time of writing.

Hot on the heels of the news of Sony's new DRM that earned significant community backlash, Andy Nguyen, the developer who previously showed off running a full Linux installation on a PlayStation 5, has officially published their methodology and necessary steps to get the open-source operating system running on Sony's console. The hack requires a PS5 disc version running firmware version 3.00, 3.10, 3.20, 3.21, and 4.00, 4.02, 4.03, 4.50, 4.51, and there is only support for the M.2 drive in the 4.XX versions at the time of writing. There are supposedly ways to downgrade the PS5 firmware to one of the versions that still supports the hack, but those may not always work reliably. If you've followed the jailbreak steps, injected the payload and rebooted back into Linux, you should be greeted by a full Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon installation, replete with the Linux kernel 7.

Interestingly, the PS5 Linux installation is quite full-featured, replete with custom VRAM allocation, fan control, and a boost mode toggling—all from within the terminal or a text file, of course. There are some caveats, and driver development is still ongoing—wireless networking, for example, may require you to manually restart the WLAN adaptor to work. The Sony DualSense controllers also don't currently work via the built-in dongle, although they do with an external dongle. The output refresh rate is also limited to 60 Hz across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, although 120 Hz may be added later. The biggest limitation, however, is that it is a soft mod, meaning that if you restart the PS5 while in the Linux desktop, it will not boot back into the environment unless you apply the same jailbreak again. The upside of that is that the PlayStation 5's base OS isn't affected by the Linux installation, so if you want to go back to using it as a regular PS5, you can just reboot.

A Hypervisor bypass recently appeared giving game crackers an alternative way to circumvent protections like Denuvo DRM. The bypass is so effective that popular game repacker, FitGirl, has declared that "all single-player/non-VR Denuvo games are now cracked/bypassed." The announcement comes after four Hypervisor bypasses were released for EA Sports games. The Hypervisor bypass appears to rely on installing a new Hypervisor driver in Ring -1, granting it very low-level access, which present significant security concerns, as acknowledged by FitGirl themself.

The announcement of this universal Denuvo bypass has prompted Denuvo to implement a new workaround: require a regular DRM check with an online server every two weeks, according to recent reports from players online. This updated check has seemingly been applied to games published by 2K, namely NBA 2K25 and 2K26 and Marvel's Midnight Suns. Irdeto, the company behind Denuvo, has also spoken out about the issue, stating that "We're already working on updated security versions for games impacted by hypervisor bypasses. For players, performance will not be compromised by these strengthened security measures." Notably, Denuvo also said that whatever workaround is released will not operate in Ring -1, as has been theorized.

One of the often-touted benefits of console gaming is how physical media enables access to games, even when there is no internet connection for the DRM to verify the game's license. Now, it seems as though the Sony's PS5 will start locking players out of digital-only games if the console has been unable to connect to PSN servers within the last 30 days. This is according to testing done by Hikikomori Media, who found the issue with Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers, both of which were purchased as digital-only titles in April 2026.

The content creator simulated an offline PS5 by disconnecting it from the internet, resetting the internal clock by removing the CMOS battery, and then booting up the PS5 without an internet connection. Effectively, he tricked the PS5 into thinking that it had been offline for an extended period of time. The end result is that both Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers were unable to launch after the reboot. It's notable that games purchased before March 2026 would still launch without a hitch. Based on this testing and further testing with a PS4, which revealed a timer showing how long it had been since the console could call home, it seems as though games purchased after March 2026 will need to connect to PSN servers at least once every 30 days in order to be playable.

Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert is just over a week away from its March 20 launch, and in a recent Steam News post, the studio behind the game has provided additional information about the release, while the Steam Store page now reflects that the game will launch with Denuvo DRM. The news update confirms that players jumping into the world of Pywel will be able to preload the game 24-48 hours ahead of the official launch, starting on March 17 or 18, depending on which part of the world they're in—the game goes live on March 19 at 10 PM UTC, so the exact launch date differs by region. Pearl Abyss also confirmed that Crimson Desert will not support cross-platform save, and there appears to be no plan to add it in at a later date. While Crimson Desert will be playable completely offline, Pearl Abyss warns that the game will need an internet connection on day one in order to install a day-one patch.

It's unclear how the addition of Denuvo DRM will affect gameplay, especially since Pearl Abyss set a pretty low barrier to entry with the minimum hardware requirements that it published earlier this week. Denuvo, and other DRM services, have, in the past, been known to cause performance degradation, even on higher-end hardware, but if the game was tested for the minimum requirements with the DRM in place, players can likely expect little to no performance hit. While Denuvo doesn't necessarily lock Linux users out of Crimson Desert, its use is generally frowned upon by the Linux gaming community. Pearl Abyss has not mentioned Steam Deck or Linux compatibility in any of its communications surrounding Crimson Desert.

NVIDIA has rolled out GeForce Hotfix Display Driver version 595.76, based on the recently released 595.71 WHQL Game Ready driver. The update specifically targets a GPU voltage cap issue affecting overclocked graphics cards, which prevented them from boosting to expected frequency levels. The voltage limitation surfaced shortly after the March 3 release of the 595.71 WHQL driver, which itself was meant to resolve problems introduced by the earlier 595.59 build. Users with RTX 50-series "Blackwell" GPUs reported reduced boost clocks and performance degradation under load, with observed core voltages sitting lower than on prior drivers. The new 595.76 hotfix restores proper voltage behavior when overclocking is applied.

Beyond the voltage fix, the hotfix addresses several game-related issues. In Resident Evil Requiem, it resolves white glowing artifacts that appeared when Subsurface Scattering was enabled and improves path tracing performance. It also fixes launch crashes in Star Citizen and corrects intermittent application crashes or driver timeouts when playing multi-key DRM content in browsers on HDCP 1.x monitors. As with all NVIDIA hotfix releases, version 595.76 is a beta, optional driver distributed through the company's Customer Care support site. It undergoes a shortened QA cycle and will be pulled once its fixes are rolled into the next official WHQL-certified release. Users seeking maximum stability may prefer to wait for that broader driver update.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix Display Driver 595.76

GOG, the game distribution platform formerly owned by CD Projekt Red, was recently sold off by the aforementioned game studio and taken over by one of CDPR's co-founders, Michał Kiciński, who, at the time, promised to stay true to the platform's original pro-consumer approach to game distribution. Now, in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, the new owner and CEO has revealed his plans for the now-independent GOG. Apparently, the leadership will be leaning into GOG's Game Preservation Program and its niche appeal with indie and retro gaming communities, instead of trying to compete with the big boys on volume and AAA sales. That said, he has also promised that GOG will continue to sell AAA games from CDPR, as part of the buyout deal—at least for six years from the date of the agreement.

Whenever there is a big shuffle in the business side of the gaming industry, there are always questions about how these smaller players will handle massive competitors, like Steam. When asked about how GOG will compete with Steam, Kiciński said that the indie platform doesn't plan on taking Valve on head-on. Instead, he says that "GOG has its own strengths and really should focus on maintaining them and even strengthening them." He goes on to explain that GOG's "identity" and "uniqueness" are "very much appreciated by gamers." What he is alluding to here is the Game Preservation Program, which aims to modernize and preserve classic games, both for future gamers and historians. He goes on to say that "Whenever a company is trying to win a market, it needs to just be better at a certain segment. In the case of GOG, that is classics and modern classics. Our aim and our vision is to just simply provide a superior service."

GOG (formerly Good Old Games) has officially changed ownership, according to a statement put out by the company, with Michał Kiciński, co-founder of GOG and CD Projekt Red, taking over the game distribution platform from CD Projekt Red. According to some reports about the buyout, the total amount paid for the acquisition was on the order of $25.26 million (90.7 PLN). The sale of GOG aligns with CD Projekt Red's recent moves, like moving away from the Red engine to Unreal Engine 5 in what appears to be an attempt to focus more on the creative side of game development instead of investing time into technical game dev on a proprietary engine—the Cyberpunk 2 creative director previously said that "we want to make games, not engines," when asked about the move to UE5. Despite the change in ownership, CD Projekt Red games will continue to be published on GOG, and the existing library will also continue to be available on the platform.

GOG says that Kiciński has committed to the buyout "because he wants to preserve and grow the original philosophy behind GOG," and the company insists that, under the new ownership, it will be doubling down on the co-founder's vision that "GOG stands for freedom, independence, and genuine control." For the time being, at least, nothing seems to be changing for the end-user. GOG will still provide DRM-free games and offline installers, with the option for GOG Galaxy 2.0 as a convenience option.
GOG has also promised to keep up its game preservation efforts via the Game Preservation Program, which has already preserved and modernized 267 games. GOG has also clarified that any tips donations made to GOG via Patreon or the store will still go towards the game preservation mission, and not into the pockets of publishers or the company's new owner.

In September, Ubisoft and Atari announced that they were teaming up to reissue five classic games for consoles, including cult classic horror survival game, Cold Fear, from 2005. Now, Atari has also teamed up with GOG to revive Cold Fear as part of the GOG Preservation Program. Being part of the GOG Preservation Program effectively means that GOG will sell the game, in this case at $11.99, and ensure that the game "will work on current and future most popular Windows PC configurations." GOG also commits to its no-DRM approach, which makes it easy to keep an archived backup of install files, in the event that CD Projekt Group, GOG's parent company, stops supporting the program or game, for some reason.

Cold Fear originally launched on March 28, 2005, and GOG had to fix several issues to get the game running on modern hardware and to bring it up to some sort of modern standard in terms of hardware support. The most notable changes and fixes include fixing a bunch of quality-of-life issues and menu options, like the brightness and contrast sliders, correcting the game's physics without locking the frame rate, adding support for a host of controllers—including the DualSense and DualShock 4, Xbox Series, One, and 360, Switch Pro and Pro 2, Logitech F, and Amazon Luna controllers—and adding controller hot-plug support. GOG also added support for cloud saves via GOG Galaxy. The game also has native support for HD, FHD, QHD, and 4K resolutions and high refresh rate monitors.

Steam is by far the most popular game distribution platform for the PC platform, and its hardware and software surveys provide a pulse of the PC gaming market. The platform's latest monthly snapshot shows Steam on Linux exceeding 3% of all Steam sessions. What's more, one-third of these Linux users play on Valve's own SteamOS platform, which is a specialized PC Linux distribution for gaming. 3.05% of all active Steam users are playing on Linux with Steam for Linux as the DRM platform.

This is a 33% year-on-year growth from October 2024, when Linux made up 2% of all active Steam users. With this, Steam on Linux has surpassed Steam on macOS, which held 2.11% of the active users. Windows continues to be the dominant OS for PC gaming, with a 94.84% stranglehold. Within Windows, the latest Windows 11 gained 3% market share at the expense of Windows 10. Windows 11 holds 63.57% of the market, compared to 31.14% held by Windows 10.

Microsoft recently rolled out its September 2025 Patch update with a KB5065426 code for Windows 11 24H2. However, the patch reportedly produces a very specific bug that prevents some Digital TV and BluRay/DVD applications from playing video. As these applications utilize Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) with HDCP enforcement or Digital Rights Management (DRM) for digital audio, they may experience various errors, including copyright protection issues, frequent playback interruptions, freezing or black screens, or no video playback at all. Microsoft confirmed the issue on September 19 and is actively working on the fix, which it will roll out in future Windows updates. Microsoft claims that this issue doesn't impact streaming services.

The Enhanced Video Renderer, although still used by some players, has largely been superseded by newer renderers, such as the Simple Video Renderer. Its job in protected playback is to work with Media Foundation and older DirectShow components so decoded frames remain within a trusted rendering path. EVR ensures video is composited only onto Direct3D surfaces that the system treats as secure, preventing decrypted frames from being written to ordinary memory or captured by other software. That coordinated handoff between the media framework, drivers, and the GPU is what lets Windows meet the licensing and output restrictions required for BluRay, broadcast TV, and other DRM-protected formats.

ChimeraOS developer Alesh Slovak has revealed Kazeta, a Linux-based OS that aims to bring back the ease of classic gaming consoles on PCs. After six months of development, the project addresses growing frustrations with complex digital storefronts and aims to preserve gaming collections through physical media. The system operates by loading DRM-free games onto SD cards that function as cartridges. Users simply insert a card and power on their PC to boot directly into the game, eliminating accounts, online requirements, and cloud dependencies. The system stores save data on internal storage while game cartridges stay read-only to preserve them. When users don't insert a cartridge, Kazeta shows a retro-style BIOS menu to manage game saves similar to 1990s consoles. The OS works with both new PC games and old games through emulation supporting DRM-free content from sites like GOG and itch.io.

Slovak created Kazeta after he saw non-tech-savvy users having trouble with Steam's complex layout and he grew tired of digital distribution himself. His renewed appreciation for physical media and concern over long-term game preservation drove the project's philosophy.

A happy owner of Sniper Elite: Resistance sent out a cheery message via the game's Steam discussion section—Denuvo Anti-Cheat seems to be an optional element when setting up Rebellion's latest tactical shooter. The user's public announcement read as follows: "I almost couldn't believe it when the setup dialog appeared...'Do you want to install Denuvo? YES or NO.' Now the drawback to skipping it is the fact that it's required for multi-player. But as a single campaign player myself, I was glad to have the choice to not install it. I wish more games would give us single players this option! For many a PC gamer, this sense of choice will be celebrated—at least on a surface level—as Irdeto's software is no stranger to controversy. Despite widespread deployment across many popular games and adding of "exciting new features," development teams and publishers have—on occasion—removed Denuvo protection systems from their products, even pre-launch.

Further community discussion—regarding Sniper Elite: Resistance's dropping of anti-tamper technology—focused on the benefits of not having a "kernel infesting, performance nerfing malware/spyware" package interfering with a gamer's solo experience. Unfortunately, Anti-Cheat seems to be an essential aspect for folks who want to indulge in multiplayer—be it co-op, invasion or a traditional PvP mode. Additional feedback points to Irdeto's digital rights management (DRM) system being a compulsory component. One commenter stated: "Denuvo is NOT optional, Resistance has two forms of Denuvo. The first kind it uses is Denuvo Anti-Tamper. This serves to protect the game from piracy, and validation of ownership...you can't get away from Denuvo Anti-Tamper, the game files are wrapped in it. The second kind is the Denuvo anti cheat, which is only needed for multiplayer. Every Sniper Elite game since no. 4 has used Denuvo Anti-Tamper, Resistance is no exception." Late last year, Irdeto staffers attempted to reach out to the gaming community, but responses were largely negative—a Denuvo product manager reckoned that most of this "toxicity" was generated by piracy groups. At the time, Irdeto's representative stated that his team's "solution simply works" and licensees (game developers) should do better in communicating these benefits (of Denuvo) to their audiences.

Denuvo has taken its fair share of flak over the years for a variety of warranted and unwarranted reasons, but it looks like the company has finally decided to put its foot down, or at least try to. Recently, Denuvo started a Discord server, seemingly in an effort to address the gaming community's complaints about a variety of topics. These include alleged performance impacts and hardware degradation caused by its anti-piracy and DRM software commonly used in modern games. Needless to say the Denuvo Discord server was met with about as much enthusiasm as one might expect, and the Discord sever was shut down just two days after it opened. Although the server has since been resuscitated, the company has muted unapproved community members. Today, however, Rock Paper Shotgun published an interview with Denuvo's product manager, Andreas Ullmann, and in it, Ullmann goes on to defend Denuvo's existence and outright dismiss gamers' concerns about the anti-cheat and anti-piracy software.

Addressing a question about "toxicity" and oft-genuine concerns from gamers over the use of Denuvo anti-tamper and anti-cheat software, Ullmann seemingly implied that gamers are just upset because the software works, robbing gamers of the ability to simply play a game for free instead of paying full retail price. When asked directly about why Denuvo doesn't address the claims of performance hits to games that implement it, Ullmann placed the onus on game developers to perform those comparative tests, again calling the gaming and piracy community toxic in the response. He dismissed the idea of Denuvo or a third party performing comparative analysis of the impact of anti-tamper and anti-cheat software, citing intellectual property concerns and community mistrust for a lack of first-party testing. At the same time, Ullmann admits that Denuvo has had performance impacts on games in the past but remarks that it's "interesting" that there aren't more incidents of reduced gaming performance. These comments were also made in spite of Denuvo's own marketing materials claiming that the software has "No impact on in-game performance."