Death Stranding (opens in new tab) finally got a release date this week, with Kojima Productions announcing that we'll be climbing and peeing all over post-apocalyptic America on June 2. Good news, then. Not as welcome was an addition to the Steam page (opens in new tab) that notifies prospective couriers that the PC version uses Denuvo DRM.
The controversial anti-tamper software typically draws plenty of ire whenever it crops up, and not just from the pirates it's designed to foil. Indeed, it's historically not done a great job of stopping piracy. Resident Evil 7 was cracked in less than a week, leading to Denuvo acknowledging that "there is no uncrackable product (opens in new tab)."
Denuvo has been criticised for allegedly causing all sorts of problems, especially in regards to performance. When Devil May Cry 5 (opens in new tab) was compared to a build without Denuvo, there was a 25 percent jump in performance on average, with players able to squeeze another 20 fps out of the game. Capcom eventually removed the DRM.
In other cases, it's had little or no impact at all. Durante put Final Fantasy 15 (opens in new tab) through its paces, for instance, and found that it didn't negatively affect the in-game performance, though it possibly increased load times by a small amount.
Publishers and developers relenting and removing Denuvo isn't uncommon. Along with Devil May Cry 5, it happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda (opens in new tab), Rime (opens in new tab), Life is Strange: Before the Storm (opens in new tab), Rage 2 (opens in new tab) and plenty of others.
Predictably, the Steam forums (opens in new tab) are already full of posts on the subject, none of them positive. Thankfully, if you're not keen on the idea of buying a game that uses Denuvo, you can just wait a wee while for it to be removed once Death Stranding's been inevitably cracked.
