Square Enix’s NieR Replicant and Crytek’s Crysis Remastered have dropped Denovo DRM protection in their latest respective updates. This isn’t one bit surprising as the primary goal of Denovo is to prevent piracy at the time of launch (1-2 months). After that, leaving such an intrusive DRM is detrimental as it worsens performance while serving no clear purpose.
Earlier this week, Square Enix also removed Denovo from Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider as the DLSS 2.2 update landed for the two titles. Similarly, Bandai Namco also removed Denovo from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.
Many gamers may see this as the end of Denovo, but that’s far from the truth. Removing DRM protection a few months after launch is something that many developers do, and should become a norm across the industry. However, with NieR Replicant, the developers took over six months to remove the DRM which is pretty excessive. Similarly, Crysis Remastered also dropped Denovo more than a year after the initial launch which in itself says a lot about how popular it really is among publishers/devs.
