Crimson Desert has added a notice on Steam that they will be using Denuvo. Denuvo is extremely unpopular among players.
What has Crimson Desert done? Crimson Desert has secretly added a notice on their shop page on Steam that the new action-adventure will use the Denuvo copy protection. The clear notice can now also be found on the German shop page of Steam.
There was no official announcement, and developer Pearl Abyss has only updated the shop page of its game so far. This means at least that it is now known that Crimson Desert will use Denuvo.
Players are far from thrilled about this: Denuvo is considered a performance hog in PC games and is therefore particularly unpopular.
Many players consider Denuvo to be a performance killer for PC games
What is Denuvo anyway? Denuvo is a widely used, controversial anti-piracy and anti-tamper software (DRM) that encrypts game files and makes access to them difficult. Many developers use Denuvo as an additional protection measure alongside Steam or Epic Games. In many cases, it only protects the release and a few weeks later the protection is removed again.
Why is Denuvo so unpopular? Players have long criticized Denuvo for impairing the performance of games. On Reddit, users are already criticizing the decision and fearing that the copy protection may affect the performance of Crimson Desert. Some are at least hoping that Pearl Abyss will remove the copy protection sooner or later.
As early as 2019, for example, Techpowerup magazine tested the performance losses due to Denuvo and found no real impact at that time: The performance loss was said to be somewhere between 3 and 4%, far from what players officially accuse the copy protection provider. However, there are also opposing reports. For example, in Hogwarts Legacy, performance without Denuvo is said to have increased significantly.
Crimson Desert is an action-adventure with role-playing elements and an open world. It comes from the developers of Black Desert and is set to be released in 2026. We at MeinMMO will tell you everything about the release date, editions, trailers, and more: Crimson Desert: Everything about release, platforms, editions & multiplayer at a glance
