The once mighty, seemingly uncrackable Denuvo DRM was finally broken and broken hard in 2017. So much so that a number of developers moved away from it and new games that continue to use it found their games were barely protected for hours or days - a far cry from the weeks and months that games of 2016 enjoyed. To try and correct that downturn in its fortunes, Denuvo has made a major update to how it operates, hoping that that will help slow down the pirates as the New Year rolls around.
The technique that pirates used to break through Denuovo's protections after years of banging their head against the wall is an interesting one. Instead of trying to crack the anti-tamper software directly, crackers simply figured out that if they can generate a legitimate key for it they can disable it, making it think they're a valid user. Clever stuff. But now that that technique is known about, Denuvo's developers are looking to counter that in turn.
As TechPowerUp reports, the latest version has been paired up with similar technology, VMProtect, which has made it all but impossible - so far at least - for crackers to break open games leveraging both technologies. With the likes of Assassin's Creed Origins, the game is still uncracked months after release.
However, that's not just the case with that one game. Even games that are only using Denuvo like Sonic Forces, Injustice 2, Football Manager 2018 - all of them are still uncracked at the time of writing, which means Denuvo is back to doing its job and could mean that 2018 is a much leaner year for crackers than the one just gone.
While we're sure that the latest version will eventually be hacked apart too, it certainly seems that the war is far from over when it comes to copy protecting the latest games.
