The first major update for Doom Eternal on PC went live recently which comes with some new demons as well as some patches and fixes for quality of life maintenance. The update also included new Denuvo anti-cheat system, not the same as the anti-tampering system they’re known for. According to Irdeto, the makers of the software, it installs a kernel-mode driver into the programs files folder and only monitors game activity when the player is in multiplayer modes. Despite the attempted transparency by the company, this has resulted in thousands of users on Steam to completely decimate the game with plethora of review bombs.
As you can see in the above tweet, the recent reviews for the game have changed from “Positive” to “Mixed” in less than a day. At this rate, we wouldn’t be surprised if that changes to “Overwhelmingly Negative” by next week. Review bombing is often looked down upon, as it’s normally done by those who feel that the game wasn’t up to par, or if certain elements or mechanics were removed/changed before it was released. In this case, the review bombing seems to be completely condoned by the community, as their anger towards the Denuvo inclusion is shown on full display here. This is also right after Riot implemented their own anti-cheat software for Valorant, which was not well received by the fan base.
For those who don’t know, the term Denuvo is infamous in the PC gaming community. The most well-known software, the Denuvo anti-tampering, was created for the sole purpose of protecting the Digital Rights Management (DRM) of any video game studio who wished to have the software installed along with their IP. Many AAA titles have used Denuvo in the past, most of which have been bypassed by hackers and modifications. One of the main reasons why the community loathes Denuvo is due to the many complaints that the software causes the processor to overwork itself, as well as reduce the quality of whichever game has it installed.
This newer version focuses only on cheating in multiplayer and not the DRM. Still, this has a lot of PC gamers feeling unnerved over the whole situation, and since it’s being installed with a kernel-mode driver, that means it’s going to integrate directly within the core of your operating system. This essentially grants the software complete access to some potentially sensitive information. Irdeto states that the Denuvo will not collect any personal information from the operating system, but it will “collect information on how the OS interacts with the game and send the information to Amazon-hosted servers for cheat detection.”
It’s unclear if id Software or even Bethesda will do anything to have this removed in future updates as neither company has made any official statement on the matter. One thing is clear though, as long as this kernel-mode driver is part of the game, the vast majority of PC gamers will most likely not play it anymore. This is truly an unfortunate situation as the game is excellent and lives up to the Doom standard. This is also the second major issue that the developers have run into as they also addressed the Mick Gordon controversy earlier this month.