Each year, fully cracking Denuvo DRM becomes more challenging, but it remains achievable. Recently, Resident Evil Requiem has been successfully cracked by voices38, as reported by TheGamer, making it the first game released in 2026 to have its copy protection bypassed.
Resident Evil Requiem has been available for approximately six weeks. Previously, pirates could technically circumvent the Denuvo DRM by using a virtual machine or hypervisor, but this method was risky and complex, requiring users to disable Windows security features like Secure Boot entirely. With voices38's crack, the process is now much safer, involving only a modification of the game's .exe file.
In earlier years, Denuvo cracks appeared much faster, but the DRM has grown increasingly difficult to remove from game files. Traditional cracks still emerge, though at a slower pace. For instance, according to TheGamer, last year's Doom: The Dark Ages only received its crack about a month ago.
While Resident Evil Requiem's crack arrived much closer to its launch compared to Doom: The Dark Ages, future games might face longer delays. There is an ongoing battle between pirates and Denuvo, and it is highly probable that future DRM implementations will patch the vulnerabilities that allowed Requiem to be cracked.
On the other hand, hypervisor 'cracks' will likely remain the quickest workaround for games with heavy DRM, but they come with significant risks. Disabling necessary security safeguards can leave your system vulnerable to hackers and rootkits, even if the virtual machine itself is not infected with malware.
The safest and fastest way to play new games is still to purchase them and run them normally, despite potential performance impacts from Denuvo. Perhaps the rapid cracking of this DRM might encourage some developers to consider less invasive and resource-intensive copy protection methods, though that may be optimistic thinking.
