Wild Hearts Will Have EA DRM, Online Activation Required

Wild Hearts’ listing on Steam has been updated to indicate that it will have DRM.

As can be easily seen in the Steam page itself, this text has been added.

“Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: EA online activation and EA app software installation and background use required.

Requires agreement to a 3rd-party EULA: WILD HEARTS™ EULA”

Perhaps this should have been expected. We knew well beforehand that Wild Hearts was being published by Electronic Arts, but that isn’t the whole story. Dead Space Remake was actually released DRM-free by Electronic Arts as well, a choice that we now see is the exception rather than a new rule.

As we had reported, Wild Hearts got a ten hour trial on Game Pass Ultimate, thanks to its inclusion in EA Play. These are both game subscriptions, which require logging into EA’s online services to play their games. Most, if not all, their modern games require this online activation.

DRM continues to be a contentious feature in the video game industry. Video game companies feel they need to add DRM systems like Denuvo to deter fans from copying the files and make it easy to pirate. However, the players themselves have often found that DRM makes it that much harder to play games. Hackers have long alleged that Denuvo in particular harms the performance of these games on PC.

As we already know, video games do not actually need to have these anti-piracy measures to be financially successful. GOG and CD Projekt RED have long touted their success in repackaging games that were originally pirated to resell. While GOG made their name doing this with older games. CD Projekt RED have found that same success in spite of how easy it would be to pirate their biggest games, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Cyberpunk 2077.

It must be said that as we now know, of course, CD Projekt RED wasn’t completely insulated from failure. Their experience with Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be a huge learning experience, and indicated that DRM is only one of many issues that gamers care about.

Denuvo remains a very popular DRM scheme for games big and small. EA has their own system, and Wild Hearts players will just have to deal with it as part of their experience.

Wild Hearts is launching on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Origin, Steam, and the Epic Games Store on February 17, 2023.