Humankind, a strategy game touted to be the main rival of the Civilization series, is going to launch without Denuvo, according to the game's creative director.
In a forum post, Romain “SpaceTroll” de Waubert, the game’s creative director and studio head, tweeted that after gathering data from closed beta and following some internal discussions, the devs have decided not to include Denuvo in the final version of the game.
What’s the Reason?
Before anything, Denuvo is one of the most popular DRMs or Digital Rights Management tools. It helps protect digital works from potential hackers who have the intention of tampering with IPs and creating cracked versions of them.
That said, de Waubert explained why they wanted to include Denuvo in the first place. The main reason is developers have poured their hearts and souls into the game for more than four years. In addition, de Waubert this game has been a dream project of his for 25 years.
Because Humankind is one of the most wishlisted games on Steam, they wanted to prevent hackers and pirates from targeting it, at least, for a couple of days.
Despite their intention of protecting the game at launch, de Waubert said that they prioritize the best possible gaming experience that Humankind can give.
Since Denuvo was found to impact performance across the board, it may affect the overall quality of the game. That is not what the developers want, especially for those who buy and support what they do.
He went on to say that Denuvo’s current integration was not good enough and if there was a potential fix, they might not have the time to develop it before the game’s release. Hence, the removal of the DRM is the most obvious choice.
Why This is a Big Deal
It is understandable for developers to impose protection on their games to keep hackers and pirates at bay. But what de Waubert and his team did was admirable, mainly because they’re thinking about the community more than their bottom line.
So, why is this a big deal? For those who do not know, a cracked version of Resident Evil: Village has fixed the stutters found in some of the original’s most populated areas.
If the removal of Denuvo could improve game performance, we hope that more developers would follow suit. After all, a well-received game will certainly sell more copies than those that are not. Of course, there's the risk of letting pirates do their thing.
So, what do you think about the removal of Denuvo from the game?
