In December 2025, MKDev released a proof-of-concept of an HV bypass for Persona 5 Royal , with accompanying documentation describing how it all worked, using publicly available documentation and open-source hardware. This led to multiple community efforts applying that research, with the first notable release being Borderlands 4 . More recently, Resident Evil: Requiem was a zero-day crack (one hour to be precise), and Crimson Desert was circulating in piracy circles the same day it launched.
Even the HVBP itself evolved somewhat, as the first version even required users to disable Secure Boot entirely and use EfiGuard to tweak the boot process, in addition to the aforementioned steps. Due to the concerning nature of the requirements surrounding the HVBPs, even its own makers alert users to the necessity of using the provided scripts to re-enable all the security features once they're done playing.
Popular repackers within the scene initially refused to carry HVBP releases, eventually changing their tune after the requirement to disable Secure Boot and use EfiGuard was removed. Even still, the HVBP games are clearly marked as such by both release groups and repackers. Meanwhile, voices38, the only known cracker working on contemporary Denuvo, already has 2025's Doom: The Dark Ages under their belt.
For its part, Denuvo has promised that it's increasing the product's security , and notably that it'll do so without further encroaching on gamers' systems. Despite its intensity, unlike some other copy protection methods of yore, Denuvo currently doesn't install any drivers and runs like any other application in ring 3 of the operating system, a fact that led HVBP releaser Kirigiri to posit that Denuvo will never be able to properly detect the HVBP, since that runs below Windows itself.
The argument can also be made that, all things considered, until now, Denuvo has historically succeeded in its intended purpose. The mission of PC DRM has long been stated as protecting a game's initial sales weeks, particularly for highly marketed AAA releases that make the vast majority of their money around release date. As historical records show, Denuvo has been successful more often than not.
Normally, tangible and coherent information on the financial effectiveness of Denuvo is quite hard to come by. In 2024, the University of North Carolina released a study comparing sales-over-time of games protected with Denuvo versus those that got cracked.
The picture the data painted was pretty clear: a cracked game nets about 20% less total revenue in the first 12 weeks (three months) after release, with a strong correlation between the crack release date and the start of comparative revenue loss.
However, the study's author also notes that once those three months go by, it's borderline irrelevant for revenue whether a game is cracked or never had any DRM to begin with. Given Denuvo's well-known tendencies to cause performance and technical issues, some publishers have started removing it from their games right on or around the release day ( Doom Eternal, Two Point Hospital, Devil May Cry 5 ) or some time after ( Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil Village, NieR: Automata )
Most removals can be justified by the availability of cracked or DRM-free versions of the game, or due to community outcry, but it also likely benefits the publisher. Some reports claim that Denuvo's contracts include monthly and/or per-activation charges, which go away once the software is stripped.
Furthermore, any titles that never had Denuvo removed, including the HVBP releases, will be hard to archive, as at some point in time, the activation servers will vanish, and the games will otherwise become bricked.
Additionally, integrating Denuvo is both difficult and full of performance traps. Not only is Denuvo heavy to begin with, but it also takes effort from developers in crunch time to implement it effectively. Even then, the software's VM-obfuscation approach can undo weeks if not months of careful optimizations .
It also gets kind of ridiculous if you think about it: under normal conditions, a PC runs a Hyper-V, which runs Windows 11 , that runs the game executable, that runs a Denuvo virtual machine, that then finally runs the game code (or parts of it). The analogy of software to onions has never rung truer.
Even still, with AAA game releases that amount to hundreds of millions, if not billions of revenue, that 20% slice is very hard to ignore — and so the cat-and-mouse game continues.
Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-20/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Bruno Ferreira Social Links Navigation Contributor Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/a-brief-history-of-denuvo-drm-and-the-new-hypervisor-bypass-inside-the-cat-and-mouse-game-between-denuvo-and-the-piracy-scene#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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