Bethesda's only having a little DRM, as a treat.
Denuvo DRM is an object of hate for many gamers. Being anti-piracy software that may or may not slow down your PC, it’s become something of a boogeyman, to the point where—in a frankly ill-advised attempt to reach out to gamers, a Discord server for the software had to be shut down in two days. This crusade to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the public has, surprising no-one, fallen a bit flat—they still leap on any game with Denuvo in it, sometimes before they even come out.
In response to a since-deleted tweet by site 80 level (although the article is still up—with, fair play, a correction), Bethesda sets the record straight: “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does not include Denuvo. It was only in review builds for leak precautions.” As for why the rumour took off, 80 level cites the SteamDB patch branches for the game.
It doesn’t help that Bethesda’s recommended specs for the thing are pretty damn high. Even without raytracing, 32GB of RAM is recommended, while ultra settings require both a 4090—a graphics card more expensive than some entire setups—and even then, still asks you to use frame generation. Mind, that’s for full-throttle raytracing, and frame generation’s becoming way more common as AI tech improves, but still. It was enough for some conspiracy gamers to get out the corkboards.
As for the decision itself on Bethesda’s part, it seems imminently sensible. While I get the desire to stop randoms pirating your game, once it’s exposed to the unstoppable force of the internet? Well, I’ve not seen most titles hold up for long, usually leading to your average consumer having a worse product than the folks who cracked it.
Leaks, however, are a much more manageable goal. Testing happens in closed systems under NDAs in professional environments, not that it stops some people. As long as it’s a temporary application, using Denuvo doesn’t really hurt anybody. Maybe folks were just suspicious after Bethesda, the publisher of Ghostwire: Tokyo, decided to huck Denuvo at it a whole year after release, though it was also, uh, removed later. This is some Ross and Rachel levels of on-again, off-again.
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