45-525: Denuvo Anti-Tamper is an anti-tamper and digital rights management (DRM) system developed by the Austrian company Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. The company was formed from a management buyout of DigitalWorks, the developer of SecuROM , and began developing the software in 2014. It was introduced with FIFA 15 in September. In addition to Denuvo Anti-Tamper, Denuvo Software Solutions has developed
90-490: A debugger. A more recent research trend is tamper-tolerant software, which aims to correct the effects of tampering and allow the program to continue as if unmodified. A simple (and easily defeated) scheme of this kind was used in the Diablo II video game, which stored its critical player data in two copies at different memory locations and if one was modified externally, the game used the lower value. Anti-tamper software
135-460: A group of users who dislike DRM is proving to be challenging, so the admins are shutting down and reopening Discord discussions day by day instead of keeping the server active always". Anti-tamper software Anti-tamper software is software which makes it harder for an attacker to modify it. The measures involved can be passive such as obfuscation to make reverse engineering difficult or active tamper-detection techniques which aim to make
180-492: A mission to retrieve a DNA sample from General Cross. Raiding an Authority base for the sample, Walker frees captives from Vineland whose DNA was used in horrific cloning and mutant experiments. Walker decapitates General Cross after defeating him in battle, though a fresh clone of the General escapes. Back at Kvasir's lab, the doctor uses Cross' severed head to produce the nanotrite virus that was his part of Project Dagger. With
225-814: A move would have any influence on game sales. Denuvo's marketing director , Thomas Goebl, claimed that some console-exclusive games get PC releases due to this technology. By October 2017, crackers were able to bypass Denuvo's protection within hours of a game's release, with notable examples being South Park: The Fractured but Whole , Middle-earth: Shadow of War , Total War: Warhammer II and FIFA 18 , all being cracked on their release dates. In another notable case, Assassin's Creed Origins , which wrapped Denuvo within security tool VMProtect as well as Ubisoft 's proprietary DRM used for their Uplay distribution software, had its security features bypassed by Italian collective CPY in February 2018, three months after
270-471: A program malfunction or not operate at all if modified. It is essentially tamper resistance implemented in the software domain. It shares certain aspects but also differs from related technologies like copy protection and trusted hardware, though it is often used in combination with them. Anti-tampering technology typically makes the software somewhat larger and also has a performance impact. There are no provably secure software anti-tampering methods; thus,
315-461: A rating of 8/10, comparing the game to 2016's Doom , praising the game for its gunplay and the open-world gameplay as well as the abilities and the visual style, but felt bemused about the use of microtransactions as it featured no co-op or multiplayer. Michael Higham from GameSpot gave the game a 6/10, praising the game's combat and abilities, but criticized the humor, short length, narrative, characters, gameplay and side activities. Rage 2
360-491: A success if it meant a game took significantly longer to be cracked. In January 2016, 3DM's founder, Bird Sister, revealed that they were to give up on trying to break the Denuvo implementation for Just Cause 3 , and warned that, due to the ongoing trend for the implementation, there would be "no free games to play in the world" in the near future. Subsequently, 3DM opted to not crack any games for one year to examine whether such
405-469: Is a master of genetic manipulation tasked to create a nanotrite virus that would disable General Cross' ability to clone himself indefinitely to prolong his life. The scientist invites Walker into his sanctum, where he says he is held back from finishing his project by insufficient computing power. Walker is asked to land Eco-Pod 15, the last of a series of satellites tasked with re-seeding the Earth with life in
450-579: Is able to wield various firearms and tools to fight against enemies, including returning weapons such as the wingstick. Players can develop Walker's skills with Nanotrite-based powers. Through a mode called Overdrive, Walker's guns do more damage, enemies drop more energy and they get healed constantly — providing players with an aggressive way to mow down enemies. Nanotrites from the first game, which act as special powers and ability boosts, can be used to increase combat efficiency. The game features vehicular combat , including trucks, buggies and gyrocopters, with
495-522: Is inducted as the last Ranger, a group of Ark survivors whose nanotrite-powered suits give them enhanced combat abilities. They are asked by Prowley's recording to find the three other members of Project Dagger; Loosum Hagar, Marshall, and Dr. Kvasir. Prowley's biological daughter, Lily, provides Walker with the Phoenix, an indestructible vehicle to travel the Wasteland, and promises to rebuild Vineland in
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#1732802288243540-520: Is the sequel to the 2011 game Rage . The game was released for PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One on May 14, 2019. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its combat but criticism for its story, characters, and open world gameplay. Rage 2 is a first-person shooter . Players assume control of a ranger named Walker, who is free to explore the game's apocalyptic open world . Players are given control over some of Walker's attributes, such as their gender, skills, or attire. Walker
585-481: Is used in many types of software products including: embedded systems, financial applications, software for mobile devices, network-appliance systems, anti-cheating in games , military, license management software, and digital rights management (DRM) systems. Some general-purpose packages have been developed which can wrap existing code with minimal programing effort; for example the SecuROM and similar kits used in
630-585: The SecuROM DRM technology. In January 2018, the company and its 45 employees were acquired by the software company Irdeto. Development of the Denuvo software started in 2014. FIFA 15 , released in September 2014, was the first game to use Denuvo. 3DM , a Chinese warez group , first claimed to have breached Denuvo's technology in a blog post published on 1 December 2014, wherein they announced that they would release cracked versions of Denuvo-protected games FIFA 15 , Dragon Age: Inquisition and Lords of
675-652: The anti-cheat system Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, which attempts to prevent Nintendo Switch games from being emulated . The company was acquired by Irdeto in January 2018. Denuvo is developed by Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH, a software company based in Salzburg , Austria. The company was formed through a management buyout of DigitalWorks, the arm of the Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation that developed
720-571: The Fallen . Following onto this, 3DM released the version of Dragon Age: Inquisition about two weeks after that game had shipped. The overall cracking progress took about a month, an unusually long time in the game cracking scene. When asked about this development, Denuvo Software Solutions acknowledged that "every protected game eventually gets cracked". However, technology website Ars Technica noted that most sales for major games happen within 30 days of release, and so publishers might consider Denuvo
765-581: The Immortal Shrouded and the Authority patrol sent to dislodge them, and secures the data necessary to penetrate the Authority's security scans. Loosum Hagar is the mayor of Wellspring, a major travel hub in the Wasteland. When Walker arrives at her office, the Ranger is forced to fight off an assassination attempt against the mayor, who she suspects Wasteland tycoon Klegg Clayton of masterminding
810-415: The Ranger's absence. Marshall is found in the town of Gunbarrel. Walker is asked to assist him in restoring power to Gunbarrel and retrieving Gulo, a scout sent by Marshall from an hostile enemy clan named the Immortal Shrouded. The scout's last defiant act was to swallow the recorder with the bunker's location, which Walker recovers from her already-carved-out gut. They proceed to the bunker, wiping out both
855-513: The Ranger's own nanotrites are also susceptible to the virus. Choking to death alongside the broken body of General Cross, Walker is saved by the intervention of Lily, who returns them to Hagar's Wellspring office for medical treatment. With Lily's gun to his head, Dr. Kvasir works frantically to save the Ranger. When he succeeds, the doctor begs for his life from the enraged Lily, who spares him. The game ends with Walker regaining consciousness and thanking Lily for her help, promising to continue helping
900-479: The Wasteland as the Last Ranger. Rage 2 is a joint development between id Software and Avalanche Studios . Avalanche was selected as the collaboration partner for the project as id Software was impressed by Avalanche's work on Just Cause 3 , especially its physics-based emergent gameplay. According to Tim Willits , the team hoped that the sequel could deliver on the promise made by the first game, which
945-458: The application being protected. External anti-tampering is normally accomplished by monitoring the software to detect tampering. This type of defense is commonly expressed as malware scanners and anti-virus applications . Internal anti-tampering is used to turn an application into its own security system and is generally done with specific code within the software that will detect tampering as it happens. This type of tamper proofing defense may take
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#1732802288243990-504: The attack. Klegg tries to kill Walker after admitting he was on a first name basis with General Cross. Fighting through Klegg's henchmen, Walker warns Loosum of the plot against Wellspring and uncovers a Xerxes MK III Authority Predator tank hidden in Klegg's catacombs beneath the town. The Ranger follows Klegg to an Authority bunker, to witness General Cross put down his unsuccessful lackey for failing to deliver Wellspring. Exploring deeper into
1035-703: The case of Rage 2 , which was released on Steam as well as Bethesda Softworks ' own Bethesda Launcher, the Steam version was protected by Denuvo, whereas the Bethesda Launcher version was not, leading to the game being cracked immediately, and Denuvo being removed from the Steam release two days later. An anti-cheat sister product, Denuvo Anti-Cheat, was announced in March 2019. It was first used by Doom Eternal following an update in May 2020, although this change
1080-589: The event that the Apophis meteor rendered the planet barren after impact. After entering EDEN Space Center, Kvasir hacks the Vault mainframe to grant Walker the status of POTUS to ensure they can access every aspect of the EDEN Project. Successful in lowering Eco-Pod 15 back to Earth, Walker slaves its processor to Kvasir's mainframe before being forced to fight off an Authority strike force. Kvasir sends Walker on
1125-512: The facility, Walker finds evidence that the Authority is building massive Abadon mutants piece by piece, calling them "Titans" and planning to unleash them on the rest of the Wasteland. Walker tears the fusion core out of a huge, half-build Titan, causing a chain reaction that destroys the facility and simultaneously securing a power source for the Xerxes III Predator tank that is necessary to complete Project Dagger. Dr. Anton Kvasir
1170-401: The field is an arms race between attackers and software anti-tampering technologies. Tampering can be malicious, to gain control over some aspect of the software with an unauthorized modification that alters the computer program code and behaviour. Examples include installing rootkits and backdoors , disabling security monitoring, subverting authentication, malicious code injection for
1215-539: The form of runtime integrity checks such as cyclic redundancy checksums , anti-debugging measures, encryption or obfuscation . Execution inside a virtual machine has become a common anti-tamper method used in recent years for commercial software; it is used for example in StarForce and SecuROM . Some anti-tamper software uses white-box cryptography , so cryptographic keys are not revealed even when cryptographic computations are being observed in complete detail in
1260-466: The game's release. In December 2018, Hitman 2 's protection was bypassed three days before its official release date, due to exclusive pre-order access, drawing comparisons to Final Fantasy XV , which had its protection removed four days before release. By 2019, games like Devil May Cry 5 , Metro Exodus , Resident Evil 2 , Far Cry New Dawn , Football Manager 2019 , and Soul Calibur 6 were cracked within their week of release. In
1305-458: The game. Rage 2 was released on Steam with Denuvo digital rights management. However, the game was cracked within a day because the version on Bethesda's own store did not use Denuvo. Denuvo was subsequently removed from the Steam release. An expansion pack titled Rise of the Ghosts was released on September 26, 2019. It introduced cheats, new vehicles, a new story, and pilotable mechs to
1350-415: The game. The game was made available for Stadia as a launch title for the console on November 19, 2019. On release, Rage 2 received "mixed or average reviews" according to the review aggregator Metacritic . Daniel Tack from Game Informer rated the game a 7/10, praising the game's shooting mechanics and music but criticized the visuals, open-world and characters. Dan Stapleton from IGN gave
1395-480: The gaming industry, though they have the downside that semi-generic attacking tools also exist to counter them. Malicious software itself can and has been observed using anti-tampering techniques, for example the Mariposa botnet . Rage 2 Rage 2 is a 2019 first-person shooter video game developed by Avalanche Studios in conjunction with id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks . The game
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1440-406: The latter potentially causing significant life-span reductions for solid-state drives (SSDs). Denuvo Software Solutions has denied both claims. In the case of Tekken 7 and Sonic Mania Plus , Denuvo caused a significant decrease in performance in several parts of these games. Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica reviewed in-depth how Denuvo was causing performance penalties, releasing an article on
1485-520: The matter in December 2018. In December 2018, Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech compared the performance of multiple games that use Denuvo and found that the games had significantly higher frame rates and lower loading times when the DRM system was disabled. Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry found that a pirated version of Resident Evil Village that removed all DRM performed significantly better than
1530-459: The new military power. The game's prologue begins in Walker's home, Vineland, a city founded by former Ark residents and their descendants. Vineland gets stormed by the Authority's rebuilt Abadon mutant armies, and Walker's adoptive Aunt Prowley is killed by General Cross. Prowley leaves a pre-recorded holotape asking Walker to carry out Project Dagger, a mission conceived to stop General Cross. Walker
1575-411: The player being able to drive any vehicle in the game's world. Players assume control of Walker, the last Ranger of Vineland, who must survive in a world inhabited by dangerous mutants and crazed bandits after it was hit by the asteroid 99942 Apophis . The majority of mankind died during this apocalyptic event. While new settlements and factions emerged, a group called the Authority declared themselves
1620-501: The predecessor. The Apex engine allowed the team to create detailed indoor environments as well as broad outdoor locations, also allowing players to transition between these worlds without any loading screens. The game engine uses the Vulkan API exclusively. A sequel to Rage was hinted by Bethesda's Pete Hines, who believed that both Rage and The Evil Within had sold enough to warrant sequels. In mid-May 2018, rumors of
1665-485: The purposes of data theft or to achieve higher user privileges, altering control flow and communication, license code bypassing for the purpose of software piracy , code interference to extract data or algorithms and counterfeiting. Software applications are vulnerable to the effects of tampering and code changes throughout their lifecycle from development and deployment to operation and maintenance. Anti-tamper protection can be applied as either internally or externally to
1710-417: The retail version. Capcom later released a patch for Village that, among other changes, altered how the game used Denuvo. Leadbetter noted that the patch improved performance, running equivalent to the pirated version. In November 2021, several recent games using Denuvo were rendered unplayable, reportedly due to a Denuvo-owned domain name expiring. In the same month, it was reported that Denuvo Anti-Tamper
1755-410: The sequel were fueled when Walmart Canada's website updated its video game sections with several as-yet-unannounced titles, which included Rage 2 . Bethesda poked fun at Walmart over social media in the following days, but this turned into more direct hints of the sequel's existence. Bethesda formally revealed Rage 2 on May 14, 2018 with a teaser trailer and a gameplay trailer the next day. The game
1800-584: The system would cause no performance impact on genuine hardware. The system was released in August 2023. Games protected by Denuvo require an online activation. According to Empress , a notable Denuvo cracker, the software assigns a unique authentication token to each copy of a game, depending on factors like the user's hardware. The DRM is integrated with the game's code, which makes it especially hard to circumvent. Denuvo has been criticised for high CPU usage and excessive writing operations on storage components,
1845-694: The three components, Walker initiates the final phase of Project Dagger by infiltrating the Authority HQ. Able to gain entry to the compound by impersonating General Cross, the Ranger is discovered by the real general. General Cross meets Walker while riding a gigantic Cyber Titan, and the two battle. Killing the Titan, Walker stabs Cross in the eye with the Nanotrite Virus, causing his DNA to be corrupted to prevent future clones from being created. However, unbeknownst to Walker due to Kvasir's manipulation,
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1890-480: Was incompatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems running on CPUs in the Alder Lake series. This was fixed by January 2022. On October 18, 2024, Denuvo launched its official Discord server as part of a PR campaign, which they claim is an important step toward building stronger connections with game developers, publishers, and players. Later, Denuvo's Product manager Andreas Ullmann claimed, "moderating
1935-431: Was limited by technology during its time of release. Willits added that Rage 2 was designed to be the player's "power fantasy", thus they ensured that they will not feel underpowered at the beginning of the game. The game features a colorful color palette so as to distinguish itself from other id Software games. Rage 2 utilizes Avalanche Studios' proprietary Apex game engine instead of id Tech , which had been used for
1980-448: Was released on PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One on May 14, 2019. The game's Collector Edition, which includes a severed mutant head voiced by Andrew W.K. , is set to be released alongside the standard edition. Players who preordered the game will have access to an exclusive mission and additional gameplay items. Willits revealed that the game will be a game as a service , and he promised that lootboxes would not be present in
2025-416: Was reverted within a week after negative player feedback. In August 2022, Irdeto announced Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a DRM system for Nintendo Switch games that aims to prevent them from being emulated with programmes like Yuzu . Nintendo Switch owners widely criticised the announcement on social media , expressing concerns that it would decrease game performance. In response, Denuvo stated that
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