DOOM Eternal recently received its first update and was loaded with several improvements to in-game progression, some “quality of life” tweaks, and the addition of Denuvo Anti-Cheat program. Unfortunately, it’s the last point in that list that has fans of the game up in arms and, as a result, review bombing the game.
To be clear, Denuvo Anti-Cheat is not the same as Irdeto’s Denuvo Anti-Tamper. According to its creator, it has been developing the “anti-cheat solution” for several years now and that it works on a kernel-level.
Irdeto says that this was done in order to prevent the game from being assaulted by annoying tray icons or splash screens; the Anti-Cheat installs a kernel mode driver into your system the first time you install the game. When you’re done with the game and you choose to uninstall it, the Anti-Cheat driver is removed with the game as well.
The developer has also assured that its driver is only active whenever the game is running and ceases activity when the game is stopped for whatever reason. It says that the driver is GDPR compliant, but it does give ring 0 access to someone’s OS. Despite this, gamers who review bombed the game are bringing other issues to light.
One gamer says that after the Denuvo Anti-Cheat was installed, his game was met with unbearable stuttering, “horrendous” screen tearing despite his monitor having G-Sync enabled, and despite it also being a 120Hz display, the game seemed to lock it at 60Hz.
It’s even worse for those who just want to play DOOM Eternal’s single-player campaign; with the Anti-Cheat installed, some gamers are now saying that they can’t play it offline like they used to and that it now requires constant online connectivity.
At the time of writing, the game has received close to 4000 negative reviews over the last several days since the release of the Denuvo Anti-Cheat. Irdeto itself has responded to the complaints, saying that its team is working on allowing DOOM Eternal to be played offline for the single-player mode. In the case of Bethesda, the developer has been mum about the whole debacle, with its only statement being “The issues with DOOM Eternal have been resolved. Thank you for your patience.”
(Source: PCGamer [1] [2], Gaming Route, GameRant, Reddit, Twitter, Irdeto)
