Payday 3 drops Denuvo days before launch

Ahead of Payday 3's launch on September 21, Starbreeze Studios has removed the anti-cheat and anti-tampering system Denuvo.

The developer revealed the news on X just three days before release, informing fans that the game will no longer include Denuvo.

In July, fans on Reddit confirmed Denuvo was incorporated into the game, providing screenshots via Steam.

PC players have long alleged that the DRM software causes performance drops and issues, resulting in games like Doom Eternal and Metro Exodus dropping Denuvo's anti-piracy system.

Acquired by software company Irdeto in 2018, the company's COO of video games, Steeve Huin, recently spoke about wanting to change the gaming community's perception of Denuvo.

"Whether people want to believe it or not, we are all gamers, we love gaming, we love being a part of it," Huin told Ars Technica in July. "We develop technologies with the intent to make the industry better and stronger."

Huin said Irdeto regularly validates "that the performance is as it was and is not impacted," and that there "is no perceptible impact on gameplay because of the way we do things."

In response to the criticism regarding performance, he said: "Our voice is unfortunately not sufficient to convince people because we're not trusted in their mind as a starting point in that debate."

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