1. History

The first Denuvo-protected game was released in September 2014. Early reports suggested that Denuvo Anti-Tamper "continuously encrypts and decrypts itself so that it is impossible to crack."^[1] Denuvo Software Solutions has stated that the technology "does not continuously encrypt and decrypt any data on storage media. To do so would be of no benefit in terms of security or performance." The company has not revealed how Denuvo Anti-Tamper works.^[2] Games protected by Denuvo require an online re-activation for every hardware change every 24 hours and Denuvo limits activations to four hardware upgrades per 24 hours.^[3][4] Denuvo's marketing director Thomas Goebl stated that some console-only releases get PC releases due to this technology.^[5]

In December 2014, the Chinese warez group 3DM claimed to have defeated Denuvo and later that month released a software crack for the video game Dragon Age, which uses the Denuvo anti-tamper technology to protect Electronic Arts' Origin Online Access DRM.^[6] The group claimed that the technology involves a "64-bit encryption machine" that requires cryptographic keys unique to the specific hardware of each installed system.^[7] However, the 3DM crack arrived almost a month after the game's release in November 2014, an unusually long time for PC games^[6] which were normally cracked on the same day as release. Asked about the development, Denuvo acknowledged that "every protected game eventually gets cracked"^[6] and Ars Technica noted that most sales for major games happened within 30 days of release, and so publishers may consider Denuvo a success if it meant a game took significantly longer to be cracked.^[8] 3DM continued to release cracks for Denuvo-protected games throughout 2015.

3DM reportedly nearly gave up attempting to crack Just Cause 3, which is protected with Denuvo, in January 2016 due to difficulties with an upgraded version of the anti-tamper mechanism.^[9] They also warned that due to the current trends in encryption technology, the cracking of video games may become impossible within two years.^[9][5] 3DM announced they would stop all research on Denuvo Anti-Tamper, stop cracking all single-player games from February 2016 for one whole year, start relying on other crackers and see if the sales have increased in China in one year's time.^[10]

In August 2016, it was reported that the Denuvo protection found in Doom had been bypassed by a cracker named Voksi.^[11] Bypasses for many other Denuvo-protected games were released the following days.^[12] Although the exploit used for these bypasses was patched 3 days after the first bypass was released, news followed that Rise of the Tomb Raider, Inside and Doom^[13] had been fully cracked by the scene group CONSPIR4CY (CPY)^[14] by successfully emulating the enhanced "v3" anti-tamper implementation and patching the remaining in-game triggers. Playdead later removed Denuvo from their game Inside in their later patches.^[15] id Software removed Denuvo from their 2016 release Doom via a patch in December later that year.^[16] Crytek later removed Denuvo from their VR game The Climb.^[17] CPY continues to crack Denuvo in other games.

A few months later, Resident Evil 7 was cracked only five days after its release, making it the fastest-cracked game with the latest Denuvo implementation at the time.^[18] In May 2017, Russia n cracker BALDMAN cracked two games protected by the then-latest "v4" version of Denuvo: Nier and Sniper. On 4 June, MKDEV cracked Constructor HD,^[19] (although the release was unstable and later properly cracked by CPY.^[20]) On 6 June, BALDMAN cracked Tekken 7, just four days after release, despite shipping with the then-latest "v4++" implementation of Denuvo.^[21] In June 2017, anonymous scene group STEAMPUNKS released Dishonored 2 with an offline Denuvo license generator. They later released Adr1ft and Planet Coaster with similar generators. The keygens released by STEAMPUNKS are allegedly packed by VMProtect,^[22] which is reportedly also used by Denuvo itself in some iterations. STEAMPUNKS released working license generators for most uncracked games with the v3 implementation of Denuvo. For a short period, Denuvo protection on new games was being cracked within hours of release,^[23] however this stopped with the release of Assassin's Creed Origins, which was notable for wrapping an updated Denuvo protection within VMProtect. In February 2018, CPY cracked Assassin's Creed Origins, after almost 3 months of the game's release.^[24] Final Fantasy XV's Denuvo protection was bypassed by 3DM using the demo .exe file three days before release^[25] and several people reported finishing the game using said crack before the game was officially released on PC.^[26]

In June 2018 non-Scene cracker named Voksi cracked Football Manager 18 which had implemented Denuvo V4 Protection^[27] (The first release did not properly work on some older CPU user and Voksi fixed it with updated variant version for those CPU users). Beginning in July, Voksi cracked Puyo Puyo Tetris in four days.^[28] Later on, Voksi cracked two Denuvo games in a row Dragon Ball Fighter Z and Shining Resonance Refrain in two days (but the first release of Shining Resonance Refrain did not work properly and crashed frequently. Voksi fixed it with the help of BALDMAN^[29])

2. Controversy

Some consumers have alleged that Denuvo Anti-Tamper shortens the lifetime of solid-state drives (SSDs) by writing an excessive amount of data to the drive.^{[1][30][31][32]} Denuvo Software Solutions claims that "Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not constantly read or write any data to storage media,"^[2] calling it a "wrong rumor," since it doesn't perform read or write operations.^[33] Games with Denuvo Anti-Tamper state in EULA that "certain files of the anti-tamper technology may remain even after the product is uninstalled from your computer."^[34][35]

An issue with Denuvo arose in 2018 in the game Tekken 7, where Katsuhiro Harada, the director of the game, confirmed that it was indeed Denuvo which was causing drastic frame-rate drops in a recent update to the game, causing an outcry among the gaming community.^[36] Another issue with Denuvo appeared in July 2018 in the game Sonic Mania Plus. The developer Sega released a new update for Sonic Mania that features a new version of the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. According to legitimate users, this new change has caused massive framerate drops due to excessive hard drive writing.^[37]

3. List of Games Using Denuvo

There are currently Expression error: Unexpected < operator. games that use Denuvo.

4. List of Games Formerly Using Denuvo

There are Expression error: Unexpected < operator. games that removed Denuvo after being implemented.

5. Notes