The much-hated and controversial video game DRM tech Denuvo has seemingly been completely and utterly cracked thanks to a new technique created by crafty pirates and modders. And now that the once impossible-to-defeat DRM has been bypassed, Borderlands publisher 2K is fighting back with Denuvo’s help and reportedly implementing new 14-day online check-ins for games on PC.
As recently reported by Tom’s Hardware, on April 27, a large Reddit thread tracking which games using Denvuo DRM still needed to be cracked or bypassed officially hit zero. (This list tracks games that don’t require an online server connection, not MMORPGs and other games that do.) What that means, effectively, is that according to Denuvo modders and hackers, the DRM tech is no longer able to stop pirates from downloading and installing games for free. This milestone for hackers is largely thanks to the MKDev collective and modder DenuvOwO. It was these people who created the hypervisor-based bypass (HVB) that installs a kernel-level driver to bypass Denuvo’s DRM checks.
Technically, Denuvo is still in the game, but it isn’t functioning as it should, and pirates can play without paying. And there is already some evidence that bypassing Denuvo has led to performance improvements in titles like Resident Evil Requiem, which might push some people to use the bypass even if they bought the game legally. We saw this in a previous Resident Evil game when hackers bypassed Denuvo in 2021.
While it’s debatable whether DRM circumvention is completely bad, as video game preservation relies heavily on cracked games to keep them playable long after the publisher moves on or delists a title, there’s no question that if you make, publish, and sell video games, this isn’t the news you want to hear about the DRM software you rely on to stop piracy. So, expectedly, some publishers as well as Denuvo itself are reportedly fighting back.
As reported by Pirat Nation and Tom’s Hardware, 2K Games has apparently begun adding 14-day online check-ins to some of its PC games. The check-in has apparently been added to NBA 2K25, NBA 2K26, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. These games now reportedly use a “fixed offline authorization token” that expires after two weeks. Once that happens, the game will not be playable until you connect to the internet and let the game ping Denvuo to get a new token. Pirat Nation and hackers are claiming this new countdown isn’t properly disclosed on the games’ Steam Store page or in each title’s respective EULA.
Kotaku has reached out to 2K and Denuvo, but didn’t hear back before publication.