Denuvo is far from a fan favorite among gamers, with many blaming it for higher CPU utilization in games, and others just seeing it as something to be circumvented before they can enjoy their favorite titles. But Denuvo will now do far more than try to stop you tampering with the game's DRM, it's going to try and stop you cheating in game too.
Denuvo is a piece of anti-tamper software that protects other DRM systems like SECUROM or VMProtect. It's proved to be one of the more successful pieces of anti-cracking software in recent years, helping to protect games like Just Cause 3 for more than a year after its release. Eventually it too was cracked, though, and subsequent versions have fallen faster and faster, despite patches and updates.
But Denuvo is still proving popular among developers who want to hold off the crackers for just a few days at least and now they're going to use it to stop cheaters too.
"Cheating ruins video games for honest players," Denuvo managing director Reinhard Blaukovitsch said (via PCGamesN). "Cheating also has a major impact on the esports market, where significant prizes are on the line."
Specifics of how Denuvo achieves its anti-cheat measures are, understandably, unavailable, but developers promise it will combine machine learning with hardware protections to stop gamers from enabling mods and cheats, as well as extracting core data from the game code to give them an unfair advantage mid-game.
It also claims that the measures will have little impact on non-cheating gamers. Take that with as much salt as you can stomach.
