Digital rights management, or DRM, is a pretty useful but controversial tool. It’s designed to prevent piracy, but some of these implementations have some issues. One of the most infamous DRM software solutions is Denuvo. The Denuvo DRM has often been blamed for a ton of issues relating to performance. Players all over have come to despise the software suite and it has led to a surprising trend. More and more publishers and developers are completely removing the DRM from their games after launch.
It makes sense though, as DRM is only really any use when it comes to the launch. The first few weeks of a game’s release are the most important for sales. So when that window passes, there’s no use in risking players being turned off by DRM when sales turn to a trickle. Resident Evil 3 has become the latest of many games to follow this trend.
Resident Evil 3 Denuvo will be replaced with the generic anti-tamper software provided for Steam games. Doom Eternal, Devil May Cry 5, and Hitman 2 have all been other games to follow this path in some way. 4A Games also removed the solution from the PC version of Metro: Exodus, a title plagued by its own issues. And it’s pretty likely that more games will come after. Capcom has also removed the Denuvo tech from Resident Evil 7 as well. It would likely stand to reason that they will follow this trend of removing the DRM from games a while after launch with future titles.
Resident Evil 3 Denuvo was revealed as removed in a Steam-DB change, spotted from a SteamDB change-log. This apparently happened in a patch earlier this month, and we just now noticed. There is no explanation as to why the removal happened, as there have been no official announcements about it.
Denuvo has had a long and troubled history in the games industry.
