Notorious game cracker has removed Denuvo from Hogwarts Legacy after just two weeks

[Alfonso Maruccia]

In context: Denuvo is an anti-tamper technology and DRM solution often adopted by large game publishers (and sometimes by indie studios) to protect their latest titles against piracy. There's someone, however, who has apparently made cracking this powerful DRM their life's mission.

Game cracker "Empress" has once again achieved the impossible. After a brief beta period managed through her Telegram channel, the notorious hacker has released a "cracked" version of Hogwarts Legacy. The new action RPG set in Harry Potter's wizarding world was released just a couple of weeks ago, and it likely won't suffer much as publisher Warner Bros. has already sold more than 12 million copies (on PC, PS5 and Xbox).

Empress' ability to crack Denuvo on the latest DRM-protected games is a remarkable achievement. The cracker explains that Hogwarts Legacy is protected by "Denuvo v17" plus Steam's own (mild) DRM. The "NFO" file accompanying the cracked release (no download link is provided, of course) is extremely opinionated as per tradition, as Empress is seemingly fully supporting author J. K. Rowling as a "real woman" against what she describes as the "woke system."

Despite questionable opinions and foul language, Empress' technical skills are among the best in the "scene."

Also see: Hogwarts Legacy GPU Benchmark: 53 GPUs Tested

As a Reddit user put it, being able to crack Denuvo today is essentially "insane." Empress is just a single developer against an entire team of professionals, she has (or should have) no access to Denuvo source code, and yet can seemingly defeat the DRM and anti-tampering technology in just a couple weeks.

Before being banned from Reddit, Empress had expressed some frustration against the complexity she found in the latest Denuvo versions. For this reason, the anti-DRM cracker decided to change her habits by reserving a considerable amount of her time to defeating the much maligned Denuvo tech on the latest games coming on PC.

Denuvo is also often accused of affecting game performance negatively (and known for receiving bad press for various reasons). One YouTuber had compared the Steam version of the game and the Empress release on a low-end gaming system (Core i7-7700, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 16GB of RAM), and found the cracked release to provide higher frame rates, however this was later corrected as the comparison was invalid. The "slower" Steam version was running with the Steam overlay turned on, which was impacting performance. In a later re-test it's shown that DRM does not seem to affect performance.

Hogwarts Legacy has been widely praised for the amazing gameplay, but gamers on the PC platform have complained about stuttering since day one, even on high-end systems. A patch released on February 14 was meant to alleviate some of this, with the notes specifically mentioning "shader type compilation optimization," but this hasn't worked for everyone. To learn more about shader compilation and why it causes stuttering, read our explainer here.

Update (Feb 25): The original story wrongfully reported that Denuvo DRM had a negative impact on Hogwarts Legacy's performance. There is, after all, no free performance gain when the DRM is removed from the game.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/97722-notorious-game-cracker-empress-removed-denuvo-hogwarts-legacy.html

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

I wonder if it is first time cracked games are literally better than license? :lol:

 

[yRaz]

I wonder if it is first time cracked games are literally better than license? :lol:

Oh, most certainly. This is the first time I've ever heard of a game being cracked

 

[Lew Zealand]

Frametime graph looks much smoother in outdoor, non-NPC heavy areas with 35% higher %lows to go with 25% higher fps overall, a great improvement.

Hogsmeade is still pretty bad with the %lows even w/o Denuvo (high NPC AI overhead?) but averages are still more than 25% faster, which is welcome.

 

[RudyBob]

I'm waiting on Dead Space

 

[MSIGamer]

It's just a load of garbage that is stripped from the game. Adding drm is in the end never good for the consumer. Yet publishers spend a huge amount of cash and dev time on it only to see it cracked time and again. Strange world

 

[Kam7r]

That's why I usually only play the superior versions...

 

[kira setsu]

It's just a load of garbage that is stripped from the game. Adding drm is in the end never good for the consumer. Yet publishers spend a huge amount of cash and dev time on it only to see it cracked time and again. Strange world

Denuvo did its job, it held back pirated copies long enough for the game to sell millions of copies.

you can say the game actually being good helped it too but denuvo and its ilk is pretty much there to make piracy just annoying enough to make buying a game the good choice(to those who weigh those options)

like any anti-theft, its just insurance, and if you just spent millions making a game you may want a bit of that, im not agreeing with how it works and can kneecap performance but I do think a good game deserves to make money.

 

[ExReey]

Denuvo did its job, it held back pirated copies long enough for the game to sell millions of copies.

This would mean that if the game had no Denuvo and was cracked in a couple of hours, the game would NOT have sold 12 million copies.
We just don't know that. Nobody does.

What we DO know, is that the game is objectively worse with Denovo.

 

[brucek]

25% performance impact is insane. Can Denuvo really not achieve the same "make it inconvenient enough for least a few days" at something more reasonable?

For me the most effective anti-piracy tech is that I'm reasonably sure any pirated copy I'd download is full of malware that is worse than whatever the purchase price would be.

Do the copies game reviewers get have this same level of anti-performance tech, or do they cheat by giving the reviews a better experience and then shaft just the actual consumers?

 

[Aus spot]

Denuvo did its job, it held back pirated copies long enough for the game to sell millions of copies.

Except it didn’t, it slowed by a week those ability to play the game that they were never going to purchase.

Plenty of games release without DRM or just simple steam protection and sell well if the content is good.

Indeed some smaller games do better out of being pirated as it brings to attention a wider audience than would not normally see the game. The pirates tell others and they themselves may purchase the game to support what they like.

 

[pitkin]

This would mean that if the game had no Denuvo and was cracked in a couple of hours, the game would NOT have sold 12 million copies.
We just don't know that. Nobody does.

What we DO know, is that the game is objectively worse with Denovo.

We could compare it to a game that sold millions of copies WITHOUT Denuvo to get an idea. Something like Cyberpunk maybe? That seemed to do alright for itself.

 

[m4a4]

25% performance impact is insane. Can Denuvo really not achieve the same "make it inconvenient enough for least a few days" at something more reasonable?

To be fair, all Denuvo needs is a great PR department, with "good enough" crack resistance. The higher ups don't care if they're told it'll definitely, fingers crossed, be worth all the money they'll absolutely save against pirating.

 

[Nobina]

Denuvo did its job, it held back pirated copies long enough for the game to sell millions of copies.

What, Denuvos's job was to be useful for a week? Lol.

People should inform themselves of what Denuvo does to game performance and avoid games with it if it makes them upset. But as always in this industry people are complaining while simultaneously spending money on the product they swear they don't like.

 

[brucek]

But as always in this industry people are complaining while simultaneously spending money on the product they swear they don't like.

I'm not sure it's the same people. I'm offended in principle by what feels like a ludicrous performance hit despite having no intent to buy or play the game.

Whereas I think many of the people who have bought or played the game are not fully aware of how significant the Denuvo impact is. I wasn't until I read this article - I had assumed it was something more like 5%.

 

[letsgoiowa]

Denuvo should be removed now that it has been broken.
They deliberately crushed performance.

 

[takaozo]

Downloading now...........

 

[trparky]

Can someone seriously tell me how the hell Denuvo can get away with this crap? A 25% performance hit just because the piece of crap in part of the game is no small potatoes here. That takes an otherwise great game and destroys it.

So again... someone please tell me how the hell Denuvo can get away with that? That's bordering on being a computer virus. Hell, it is a computer virus.

 

[trparky]

Denuvo should be removed now that it has been broken.
They deliberately crushed performance.

Exactly. A patch should be released to remove the boat anchor that's chained around its neck.

 

[Gars]

The comments section should end with that:

What we learned?
Denuvo isnt good for what they are making, they just cripple the game experience for the regular player/buyer.

/s

 

[kiwigraeme]

There are so many specials , bundles, weekly Epic give away - I have no interest to pirate - specially that games like this need to update. It's not that I do not know how - I just had a look at the repack specialist page who likes to workout - seems not up yet - suppose that's another advantage - not silly big downloads.

But this protections after 1 month need to be scaled back - again and again to finally removed after a year

If I want want it I just wait for the goty edition on discount.

removed over time must help modders etc

 

[Srksi]

Member Rime? It had poorly implemented denuvo. Couldnt run it even at 800x600 with acceptable frame rate. Then they removed it and I got stable 100 fps...

 

[Just Some Dude]

And now we wait for the the infected version to me made available and links to the downloads. More infected PC's.

 

[Tams80]

And now we wait for the the infected version to me made available and links to the downloads. More infected PC's.

How's the pay over at Denuvo?

 

[takaozo]

Game runs fine on 5600x with 2060 on 1440p native resolution medium settings. 50-80 fps.
Long live Empress.