Denuvo Unreal Engine Protection Will Potentially Make Modding Games Impossible

Update:

It looks like Denuvo is now officially available on the Nintendo Switch platform. Find out more right here.

Original Story…

Denuvo has had quite a bit of flack from the gaming community. It’s a DRM that’s proven to be incredibly popular within the industry. Now, a new update for the DRM might also ruin the ability to mod video games. These are mods that are not malicious as well, so that might hurt quite a big community of players. Details are scarce right now, but here’s what’s being shared online right now, thanks to a report from Wccftech. 

I’m sure you’re familiar with DRM and Denuvo, but if not, we’ll catch you up. Denuvo DRM is a software that is used in video games to make them more secure. It’s essentially a means to cut down piracy and ensure that these games that are released into the marketplace are impossible to crack and share online. There are also efforts to ensure that DRM can fight back in other areas outside of pirating the game. With this encryption, games might sell better as they are not easily obtainable online. 

However, there might be another issue with Denuvo when it comes to the gaming community. It looks like the new Denuvo Unreal Engine Protection update aims to provide a better means to stop players from looking into files for games created through the Unreal Engine. This means stopping data mines from encrypting the game enough to prevent any modifications. But this also means that modding games in the future might be impossible. 

This is, of course, if a developer uses this new Denuvo DRM on their video game releases. So, while some might have this incorporated within their games, others might refrain from adding the DRM. Meanwhile, we mentioned that this is just another issue for players, as the big problem some players had with Denuvo was the performance hit. If you don’t recall, there have been plenty of comments in the past that Denuvo hurts the game performance, which makes it a battle for some players seeking to crack the game purely to have no performance hindrance. 

Meanwhile, the team behind the Denuvo DRM has expressed that their software does not hurt performance. They have even expressed their desire to provide software to a third party to test the game performance with and without Denuvo DRM to prove their statement. Their view is that the performance increase we’re seeing with DRM removed is due to the game having several updates to enhance optimization further. As a result, we’re not seeing the same build of the game with and without Denuvo enabled.