Two months after its launch, a cracked version of Resident Evil Village was released. Although cracking the game itself is illegal, it does present an interesting premise: much smoother than the retail version.
DRM or Digital Rights Management is a way of protecting digital media and copyrighted works. This has been implemented by popular developers and publishers over the years to prevent people from tampering with their games and software.
That said, a cracked version of Resident Evil Village has apparently fixed the issues that plagued the game ever since, especially the frequent stuttering in some areas.
DRM Removed
Before anything else, who was responsible for removing the DRM protection of RE: Village? Well, a popular figure in the gaming piracy community named EMPRESS did that.
For those who do not know, EMPRESS started cracking games in 2014, and Dark Souls 2 was her first work.
When asked why she started doing it, she said that she has a goal in mind that no one else has. She added that she does this by mixing philosophy with coding, though fully explaining it is very complicated.
According to an article, some people have played the cracked version for at least two hours to validate the claim. They’ve also tested it on the infamous Lady Dimitrescu Castle, which is an area notorious for its stuttering, especially after killing enemies. After playing the game, the players have noted that no stuttering was present during their entire session.
As to why this is happening on the pirated version, EMPRESS said: “All in-game shutters like the one from when you kill a zombie are fixed because Capcom DRM’s entry points are patched out so most of their functions are never executed anymore. This results in a much smoother game experience.”
To be clear, piracy is illegal. But what has happened here is pretty impressive because it now sheds light on the issue that using protective measures like DRM, for example, may have a negative impact on any game.
Capcom has not issued any statement regarding this, though they better come up with a reasonable explanation.
So, what do you think about the cracked version being stutter-free than the retail version?
