Calma homie
Denuvo was indeed basically unbeatable until Voices38 started cracking and MKdev released the hypervisor about a year ago.
The author definitely meant the period before this year and their right; before the great return of Denuvo cracking and hypervisor cracks last year, very popular games like Persona 5 Royal and Blackmyth Wukong had no cracks and despite also being the 2 games with the worst offline activation consistency.
Hypervisor cracks were (or even are) infamous because they’re hard to set up, have to be set up per game (last I heard), aren’t perfectly stable since the live patch the kernel, and mostly because they’re hard didn’t meet user expectations. An important point though: hypervisor cracks were available exclusively for Windows.
Or at least that was the case until the “Linux breakthrough” was revealed yesterday, which gives Linux the ability to run Hypervisor cracks, and with lots of CPUs, you can run the hypervisor cracks without even using a hypervisor.
Support for Linux has to be implemented in the cracks themselves too, though I did read that DenuvOwO (de facto THE hypervisor cracking team) is back porting support to all previous releases :D.
Of course nothing beats actual cracks but then again hypervisor cracks weren’t support to replace them, they’re supposed to ruin denuvo’s reputation by making games piratable on day 1 of releasing. This will have a bigger effect now that the cracks are with tinkerers (Linux users) who wouldn’t mind a little set up to play their games.
Support for Linux has to be implemented in the cracks themselves too, though I did read that DenuvOwO (de facto THE hypervisor cracking team) is backporting support to all previous releases :D.
main issue is that the HV bypasses actually checked if the HV is active - that check fails on linux and is currently being removed
the method takes advantage of how Windows games behave when run through Linux compatibility layers such as Proton and Wine. Exactly why it works is still being investigated by the community, but the result is a growing list of games that can be launched under Linux where the same approach does not work on native Windows installations.
That sounds like a very confused author, then.
Hi there!
I’m the author. Not only have I chatted to Voices, but I did an AMA with Dodi, organized the same with FitGirl (which didn’t actually happen), and even chatted to Empress. Which…wasn’t very fun. I’ve interviewed KaOs and also the gentleman behind Ghost eShop for jailbroken Switches. This is just to say I know the scene, and I know the people.
Denuvo has been almost universally cracked since the start of this year, author sounds pretty out of date to be talking as if this is a recent development.
Seems there was about 20 games released this year with Denuvo. Voices has changed the scene a lot, but he can only do so much. Now he’s using A.I. to help with his process this is speeding up a ton, but he cannot possibly keep up with ‘demand’ as it were. I found four he’s done, for 2026 releases:
It certainly hasn’t been “universally cracked”. It will get quicker, but it is still an effort. One game every two weeks or so at the moment.
universally cracked
This is not only a stretch, it isn’t true. The fun thing is that he has cracked 2026’s build, and then their updated build, then a day one release. From a technical POV, it is super interesting to see.
Hi!
I’d love to know more about the chat with Empress 😂
Sorry, when I said universally cracked I meant they had figured out a general viable method, not that all denuvo games were cracked.
I’m mostly just wondering what you meant by a Linux-based breakthrough? Since it seems you’re talking about the hypervisor method which originated on windows. That’s the part that’s really unclear in your article, some elaboration would be nice.
I’ll link the other thread to this one so we don’t have to maintain both threads :)
Good point, I should have been a little clearer with my wording. The hypervisor technique itself isn’t a Linux invention, and you’re right that the underlying method originated from Windows research.
The Linux angle is more about how the community has been applying it: using Proton/Wine compatibility layers to run Windows games on Linux in a way that interacts differently with Denuvo’s checks. That distinction is what made it interesting from a totally Linux gaming perspective, especially given how unusual it is for Linux compatibility layers to become part of the discussion around a major DRM breakthrough.
I’ll update the article wording because “Linux-based breakthrough” makes it sound like Linux created the exploit itself, which isn’t what I intended!
Dodi was lovely. At the time he was literally getting married (the day before, of or after…I forget exactly which!), in Egypt which is his home. FitGirl is far funnier than I expected, we used to check in every now and then, but that has long-since ended. She’s also got an iron-clad no press rule nowdays. Empress was brilliant, I’ll fight tooth and nail on that, in the early days she was brilliant. But…that ‘front’ wasn’t put up, she was and is quite ‘unique’ in her views.
There was a few others too, I found it really interesting to reach out to these names, they were all just quite surprised because few ever did!
applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
thats awesome news. it was getting annoying seeing so many hypervisor repacks showing up from fitgirl and not being able to play them because i refuse to use windows anymore. granted most of the games that use denuvo seem like mid AAA slop focused more on being pretty than fun, but theres a few that look like they might be good.