After Backlash, Doom: Eternal Will Drop Denuvo

Let it never be said that the squeaky wheel doesn’t get the grease.

While games journalists and critics have often criticized the use of review bombing and gamer outrage to protest changes and things they don’t like – understandably, as oftentimes people are protesting dumb stuff that deserves to be ignored – you can’t say that it doesn’t occasionally work. We’re at one such occasion now, where after a few days of outrage and review bombing (with very little personal threats or attacks from what I can gather), id Software has put their hands up, stepped back, and announced that maybe using Denuvo was a bad idea.

And thus, they plan to remove it. From a Reddit post:

Despite our best intentions, feedback from players has made it clear that we must re-evaluate our approach to anti-cheat integration. With that, we will be removing the anti-cheat technology from the game in our next PC update. As we examine any future of anti-cheat in DOOM Eternal, at a minimum we must consider giving campaign-only players the ability to play without anti-cheat software installed, as well as ensure the overall timing of any anti-cheat integration better aligns with player expectations around clear initiatives – like ranked or competitive play – where demand for anti-cheat is far greater.

They did, however, decide to go to bat for Denuvo, saying that many of the more outlandish claims people attributed to the anti-cheating software was simply untrue.

It’s also worth noting that our decision to remove the anti-cheat software is not based on the quality of the Denuvo Anti-Cheat solution. Many have unfortunately related the performance and stability issues introduced in Update 1 to the introduction of anti-cheat. They are not related.

In any case, this will no doubt make demon-slayers around the world much happier. Or angrier. I think they’re the same emotion when it comes to demon-slaying.