The upcoming zombie spectacle Dying Light 2 is coming soon, but suddenly the developers reveal that the controversial copy protection Denuvo will be part of the game. This has driven fans to the edge and since then the “feature” has been hotly debated.
What is the issue with Denuvo in Dying Light 2? Dying Light 2 is set to release on February 4, 2022. Suddenly, there was a small announcement on Steam that “Third Party DRM” was installed. Specifically, Denuvo. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is commonly understood as copy protection.
The Denuvo software is meant to ensure that Dying Light 2 cannot be pirated excessively. While the developers justify this step, fans have a completely different opinion and are furiously debating it on reddit and other platforms. But what is actually the problem?
Controversial copy protection Denuvo is said to weaken systems and consume hard drives
What is the problem with Denuvo? Denuvo has been criticized by gamers for years. For instance, GameStar reported that Denuvo slows down the PC due to numerous system queries and transfers huge amounts of data back and forth. This, in turn, is said to reduce the lifespan of SSD hard drives.
There are already reports of problems with the copy protection. Due to its functionality, it can apparently happen that Denuvo simply locks you out of the game for 24 hours.
Fans are correspondingly in a bad mood. In a huge thread on reddit (over 1,300 upvotes and nearly 800 comments on February 2, 2022), many users vent their frustration:
- Sanjay-Jurt: “This explains the icy silence about a GOG release” [GOG traditionally does not impose DRM measures]
- Pr2thej: “A penalty for paying customers!”
- VandaGrey: “Okay, that’s damn sneaky!”
Other users are somewhat more conciliatory:
- Bza4207: “I have no problem with Denuvo itself, but that they just added it two days before release.”
- WeissFan43: “Well, Dying Light 1 was pirated a lot. Almost every pirate site has it, plus all the DLCs.”
How do the developers justify this? The last sentence in the upper paragraph also addresses the opinion of the developers. They don’t want their hard work to be exploited by grinning pirates. Therefore, the official statement from the devs on Steam reads as follows:
Dying Light 2 Stay Human was in development for seven years. During this time, over 1500 people invested their time and talent into the development of the game. To protect the efforts of the entire team against piracy, which we suffered from during the release of Dying Light 1, we integrated the Denuvo system, at least for the launch phase. This is a solution that is widespread in AAA games today.
As gamers ourselves, we understand your concerns and want to ensure that your gaming experience is not affected. We are still putting additional resources into testing the game, and at this point, we cannot detect any noticeable impact on the performance. We will actively review feedback during the game’s launch. Please feel free to share your feedback with us as well.
How could all of this turn out? As the developers hinted, and as various users on reddit indicate, the Denuvo protection could be removed after the game’s launch. In this way, the developers would ensure that there would be less piracy at launch. Such approaches have been observed in other games, including Titanfall 2.
Another controversial topic regarding Dying Light 2: Are there microtransactions?
