"According to a recent report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier (paywalled), EA has reportedly decided to shut down BioWare," the studio behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, writes longtime Slashdot reader atari_kid. Quartz reports: Chief Studios Officer Cam Weber and Chief Operating Officer David Tinson wrote that "over the past several months, we've taken a hard look at our business." They said a small BioWare team had been doing early groundwork on a Mass Effect game, but EA chose to drop the effort. That decision means closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace, they wrote. "We do not take this decision lightly," Weber and Tinson said of the BioWare closure, according to Variety.
EA will keep investing in Apex Legends and is continuing work on two upcoming launches, Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, the executives said. They added that EA's Respawn and DICE studios will join forces on an upcoming project, in addition to new Battlefield titles. Bloomberg said the project is probably a new installment of the Star Wars: Battlefront franchise.
Chi gioca su PC conosce bene quella fastidiosa situazione in cui un videogioco appena installato richiede diversi minuti per preparare gli shader, oppure presenta improvvisi scatti anche quando la scheda grafica sarebbe perfettamente in grado di gestirlo. Il problema riguarda il modo in cui vengono compilati gli shader, piccoli programmi che la GPU utilizza per elaborare luci, ombre, materiali ed effetti visivi, e come vi avevamo anticipato qualche giorno fa, ora è disponibile una novità che va a risolvere proprio questo problema.
Con l'arrivo dei nuovi driver NVIDIA GeForce 621.01, questo inconveniente potrebbe diventare molto meno frequente grazie al supporto per Advanced Shader Delivery, una tecnologia sviluppata da Microsoft che cambia il modo in cui gli shader vengono preparati e distribuiti ai computer.
Normalmente, ogni PC deve compilare gli shader in base alla propria configurazione hardware e software, e questa è un'operazione che richiede tempo e che, quando avviene durante una partita, può provocare improvvisi picchi di utilizzo della CPU e fastidiosi rallentamenti, conosciuti come lo stuttering. Advanced Shader Delivery sposta buona parte di questo lavoro nel cloud.
Since its initial release in 2011, Bethesda’s popular role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has reached multiple generations of gaming consoles. It never officially landed on macOS, though. Players have relied on various complex workarounds over the years just to run it. Now, a fresh open-source project named SkyrimMT aims to bring the complete […]
In these strange, subdued weeks before the much-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI, there have still been some welcome surprises. Onimusha: Way of the Sword revived a half-forgotten samurai action series with much aplomb, while Silent Hill: Townfall transported all of the franchise’s bloody, dread-filled psychological horror to … the picturesque Scottish coast. Even more shocking to games writers, though, is the fact that the forthcoming Modern Warfare 4 has one of the best Call of Duty campaign modes for at least six years – and might even be up there with the original Modern Warfare trilogy.
The setting is an invasion of South Korea by its northern neighbour – a setup that could have fuelled a hundred instantly forgettable Netflix films, but has proved controversial in a video game. The authoritarian regime has a new (fictitious) ruler and a powerful experimental weapon, which it’s not afraid to use as the opening gambit in an explosive attack. You take on the role of Park Hyun Jun, a conscripted South Korean soldier who, along with his small unit of similarly inexperienced grunts, gets caught in the firestorm as cities burn and enemy paratroopers fill the skies.
The start of the tween years, nine years old, is a sweet spot between curiosity and growing independence, making it a fun, though sometimes tricky, age to buy for.
Kids at this age are up for a challenge, whether that means trying a trickier craft set, playing a more complex game or stepping up their sporting interests. Pitch a gift right and you’ll not only get the whoop of joy when they first receive it, but something that will hold their interest and help them develop their skills, interests and hobbies over time.
À medida que cada vez mais jogos são vendidos exclusivamente em formato digital e ficam dependentes dos servidores das editoras, uma nova proposta de lei nos Estados Unidos quer reforçar os direitos dos jogadores sobre os títulos que compram.
The revelation that there was a ton of performance lying on the table in the remastered The Elder Scrolls Part IV: Oblivion won't be a surprise to people who have played the game, which is notorious for its hitching and stuttering. The reason primarily lies in its poor utilization of hardware, and that's a big part of what LTSharpe and Claude have addressed in the new Oblivion Remastered Performance Fix that changes nothing about the game's visuals yet increases performance by as much as 68% in the worst case. (h/t to ComputerBase)
Yes, this mod is just about 100% vibe-coded, and yet, rather than hacking Minecraft into GTA V on iPhone, or hacking CoD Black Ops 2 maps into Minecraft, this mod is a binary code modification for Oblivion Remastered that seeks to improve performance and stability considerably, and according to numerous jubilant and thankful posts on NexusMods, it seems to do exactly that, with one user proclaiming that the performance increase was "dramatic" and that the overworld stuttering that plagues the game is "completely gone."
(Image credit: LTSharpe on GitHub)
The story goes like this: gamer and mod creator LTSharpe has a slightly older system with a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU. Not the newest chip on the block to be sure, but Zen 3 isn't so old that it should be crumpling under the weight of games just yet. Frustrated with the verifiably awful performance of the remaster of The Elder Scrolls Part IV: Oblivion, he paid for a subscription to Anthropic's Claude AI agent and started working with the assistant to diagnose and fix the performance problems.
"Diagnose" is a critical keyword here, because it isn't like Claude was hallucinating an engine.ini tweak somebody else published for the original game 20 years ago. The partners, with Claude doing the hard work and LTSharpe directing, reverse-engineered the game to the point that they were able to build a repeatable benchmarking framework. That allowed them to systematically diagnose the causes of the performance problems and then test fixes against the real behavior of the game with modified machine code.
That's the thing; this was done without source code. Neither TES4 Oblivion nor the remaster's Unreal Engine is open-source software. The sheer magnitude of the task would be incredibly daunting to a team of human engineers, much less a single person. According to LTSharpe, over the course of two weeks Claude successfully diagnosed and fixed bugs in not only the Remaster's Unreal Engine code, but also in the underlying Gamebryo original engine, in AMD's frame generation code, and even in the Unreal Engine itself, improving performance and avoiding crashes.
The developer—or perhaps we should say, coordinator?—is careful to acknowledge that the performance tweaks were created with his system specifically in mind and that they may not work well for others. Indeed, he has a Radeon graphics card, which puts him within a surprisingly small minority of PC gamers, and some portion of his fixes were aimed at making sure AMD's FSR upscaling and frame generation remain in effect despite a long-standing game bug that disables them when you task-switch (Alt+Tab) out of the game. The good lieutenant invites other gamers to try out the fix and report back, and he's even helping out with support requests on NexusMods, too. Head over there if you're keen to grab the fix and try it for yourself.
Leading French eSports club Team Vitality has confirmed that its Paris HQ has been smashed up, with trophies, computer equipment, and more looted over the weekend. Thankfully, no team members or staff have been hurt. The team’s V.Hive premises were attacked by criminal opportunistic looters under cover of the widespread protests in France over issues related to school funding, living costs, and government spending cuts. Other shops, public buildings, and property have been smashed, looted, and sometimes burned.
Aujourd'hui, les locaux de notre club ont été pillés en marge de la mobilisation du 17 octobre.Heureusement, aucun membre de notre staff ni aucun fan n’a été blessé. En revanche, nos vitrines ont été détruites, nos trophées et notre matériel informatique volés.En attendant d’évaluer la totalité des dégâts, V.Hive restera fermé.Plus d’informations seront communiquées par la suite.Prenez soin de vousOctober 17, 2026
Above, you can see the confirmation of the serious, unfortunate events seen over the weekend. “Our display windows were destroyed, and our trophies and computer equipment were stolen,” lamented the post [machine translation], while being thankful that no members, staff, or fans of Team Vitality were hurt. The bulletin ends with the news that the V.Hive will remain closed for now, until after damage has been assessed. More information is promised in due course.
There are a multitude of social media posts sharing images, videos, and pointing fingers at what they see as the cause of the protests, riots, and looting. Of course, fingers point in all directions, and unfortunately there are also reports of AI-generated rage-farming media, so keep a critical eye open should you dare to doom scroll.
Of course we’ve focused on the damage and looting of Team Vitality’s HQ due to the tech angle. The compendium of video clips shared by the news organization NEXTA provides evidence of the extent of the V.Hive attack. This 30-second clip appears to show rioters hammering at and kicking in the eSports HQ’s windows, taking items from the premises, and throwing gaming chairs onto bonfires in the street.
Los "estudiantes" franceses saquearon la arena de Esports de paris y se robaron el trofeo que team vitality gano en el torneo de counter strike Tambien se robaron las PC gamer y las destriparon ahi nomas en plena calle https://t.co/FjEkVPDuV6October 17, 2026
We also see accounts like ElBuni share clips of looters brandishing what appear to be eSports trophies from Team Vitality’s HQ (embedded above). The second clip shows looters with their hands inside gaming PCs opened up on the sidewalk. It looks like the hooded and gloved looter in the video is removing RAM sticks, an easily pocketable yet highly valuable PC component, as you will all know.
This morning, the French Prime Minister has called for local and partial curfews to contain the post-demonstration rioting. Meanwhile, there are concerns that there could be copycat behavior across Europe.
From Divine, Frank Fiegel and Helen Kane to the West Sussex estate pioneering rewilding, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which classic of political theory was dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici?
2 What is the only jazz act to win the Mercury Music prize?
3 Spanish is an official language of which African country?
4 What 2026 release is said to be the most expensive entertainment product ever created?
5 Which West Sussex estate is a pioneer of rewilding?
6 Which gas is named from the Greek for “lazy”?
7 US doctor Sara Cohen writes bestsellers under what pseudonym?
8 Which coffee chain was founded in London in 1971?
What links:
9 c 6000BC; 79; 512; 1631; 1906; 1944?
10 Divine (witch); Frank Fiegel (sailor); Helen Kane (flapper); The Beatles (vultures)?
11 Mark Brown; Mo Johnston; Kenny Miller; Steven Pressley?
12 Bag; dismiss; plunder; sherry for Falstaff?
13 Caring; Elvis; Famous Five; Revenge; Travolta?
14 Grease; A Chorus Line; Cats; The Phantom of the Opera (currently)?
15 Martin Gilbert; Roy Jenkins; William Manchester; Andrew Roberts?
PC; Origame Digital This odd but absorbing adventure sends you waddling across Antarctica in search of an eldritch entity – uncovering a world far stranger than it first appears
A Nazi kneels down on frozen snow, staring at an endless Antarctic horizon. Another holds a gun to his head, ready to end his own life. I direct a small waddling penguin up to them, trying to imagine what it could be thinking. Dismay, perhaps. Likely bewilderment. But then a faint smile seems to break out across its beaky face, as if amused by these silly humans and their misguided belief that they could ever best this howling, harsh landscape.
For most games, the idea of playing as a penguin observing Nazis losing the plot near the south pole would be weird enough. But Penguin Colony, developed by Origame Digital, pushes further. This is an audacious, frequently brilliant retelling of HP Lovecraft’s 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness, in which eldritch horrors are just as common as Nazis. Further weirdness abounds: the many collectibles scattered about this place are not shiny gold objects à la Super Mario or Sonic. Rather, they are words. So tottering about as a semiaquatic bird, you have a unique mission: collect human language.
The studio is swapping the Mushroom Kingdom’s vivid palette for the blood-soaked grit of military action series
Where do you go after Mario? It’s a question the team at Ubisoft Paris found itself pondering three years ago after wrapping up work on the charming turn-based tactics adventure, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, sequel to its unexpected crossover hit, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. By melding a rather specialist genre with video gaming’s biggest household name, the developer introduced chin-stroking strategic play to a whole new audience. “Having the opportunity to work with the Mario franchise was a privilege, and it’s still something I’m very proud of,” says level designer director, Julien Vial. “I still remember seeing the first prototype and being blown away by all the possibilities.”
Now, Ubisoft Paris has returned with a new project, but this time the studio is swapping the Mushroom Kingdom’s vivid palette for the blood-soaked grit of military action series Rainbow Six. Where Mario and Rabbids saw squishy creatures bounce harmlessly across levels as Mario encased foes in honey, Rainbow Six Tactics, a turn-based tactical spin-off from Rainbow Six Siege, sees balaclava-clad insurgents take shrapnel rounds to the chest. A seamless tonal shift, then.
After years of sprawling ‘forever’ games, players are rediscovering the pleasures of more focused experiences. Could a new wave of independent arcades bring back the social side of gaming?
There’s an important semi-nostalgic movement happening in games, and I’m excited about where it’s heading. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.
Over the last five years, major publishers, obsessed with the success of “forever games” such as Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox, have been throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into their own sprawling, endlessly updating, battle-pass-infested mega franchises – each designed to take all our time and money. The result has been astounding failures such as Concord, Mindseye and Tales of the Shire. Even the good games – Crimson Desert, Path of Exile 2, Blood of the Dawnwalker – are so bloated they have become the unyielding masters of our precious few hours of free time.
Today, Apple announced Indie Games Week, a celebration of some of the best games from independent game studios. To kick things off, the company announced seven big titles that are making their iPhone and iPad debut today or are coming soon.
Indie games are constantly pushing the boundaries of creativity to deliver unique gameplay experiences to Apple users, and we wanted to take a moment to celebrate these games and the teams that take creative risks to push gaming forward.
Sifu.
The games available today include:
Sifu ($7.99), a stylish martial arts fighting game where you play as a kung fu student out for revenge.
Vampire Crawlers ($9.99), a deck-building spin-off of Vampire Survivors where the dungeon battles are playable at your own pace.
Little Kitty, Big City (Free with $9.99 full-game unlock), an open world game where you explore a cityscape as a cat.
Dome Keeper ($9.99), a mining and defense game where you must mine for resources while keeping an eye out for enemy attacks on the surface.
Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall (Free with $4.99 full-game unlock), a kingdom-management game that poses moral dilemmas as you are forced to make choices to save your empire.
9 Kings (Free with $8.99 full-game unlock), a card-based strategy game where you assemble your army for battle with rivals, managing troops and resources.
Coming Oct. 28: No Man’s Sky.
Also announced today is that No Man’s Sky is making its debut on the iPhone and iPad on October 28th with preorders available today. Originally announced as a 2022 release for the Mac and iPad, the game has clearly taken longer than expected to adapt to Apple’s platforms.
For those who have been patiently waiting, though, the news is very good. The iPhone and iPad versions support all of the past updates to No Man’s Sky and will work on every iPhone from the iPhone 11 forward and the iPad Air (3rd generation) and later. The game will also feature touch controls, and both mouse and keyboard and controller support. However, similar to the game’s Switch debut, it will not include multiplayer, Settlements, cross-save, or cross-play at launch. No Man’s Sky will be free to download and try with a full-game unlock offered as a $19.99 In-App Purchase.
Dome Keeper.
I’ve had a chance to play each of the games available today on my iPhone and iPad and it’s a great collection. What sets them apart from previous releases on other platforms is the attention each has paid to the unique features of Apple’s platforms. Many, including Dome Keeper, Sifu, and Vampire Crawlers, support Game Center and Family Sharing. By and large, the touch controls are well done, too, but I appreciate the games that offer controller support the most since that’s my preferred way to play.
I’ve had a lot of fun trying the betas of each of these games and am looking forward to No Man’s Sky later this month. There’s something great here for anyone who loves iPhone and iPad gaming, but be sure to check out the other gems Apple is highlighting in this App Store editorial feature, too.
We’re back with another MacStories Setups update. I swear Federico and I didn’t coordinate our purchases this summer, but you’ll notice that both of us began experimenting with XTEINK readers and the Pebble Index 01 smart ring without discussing it in advance.
The UGREEN Thunderbolt 5 Dock and Steam Controller.
Since June, you’ll see from Federico’s changes that many revolve around fine-tuning his app workflows. From re-adding Claude and Superhuman to reluctantly adopting Chrome for agentic workflows, his update reflects a refinement of the way he works. As for gadgets, Federico has begun using the DJI Mic Mini and Pebble Index 01 for dictation and refined his work and gaming desktop setup with a UGREEN Thunderbolt 5 dock and Steam Controller.
The XTEINK 4 Pro and Retroid Pocket Nova.
My setup changes this summer revolve around experiments. I first tried the XTEINK 3 reader and enjoyed creating a custom UI for it so much that I also bought the XTEINK 4 Pro, which is patiently waiting for a free weekend when I can see what more I can do with it. Plus I’ve been trying a bunch of new apps like T3 Code for working with multiple AI subscriptions, Open Minis to get more out of iOS than Siri AI allows, and working with a wide variety of remote access apps, including Beam and Jump Desktop. Finally, I’ve partially abandoned my custom social media web apps for Typefully, which has more features than I’d ever want to build myself.
That’s it for this edition of Setups. Be sure to check out the links here and on the Setups page because some of these gadgets are on sale on Amazon for its Prime Big Deal Days event. Also, be sure to follow the MacStories Deals social media accounts on X.com, Mastodon, and Bluesky.
A matéria avalia que a investida da Apple no mercado de videogames ao longo da última década foi consistente o suficiente para conquistar de fato o público gamer. Oliver, vale lembrar, assumiu a liderança da loja de aplicativos do ecossistema da Apple, após Phil Schiller deixar o posto em agosto.
O executivo falou sobre os esforços da empresa no segmento, que, segundo ele, vão além da distribuição, e ressaltou a chegada de títulos AAA ao ecossistema:
O que está acelerando esse movimento hoje é a tecnologia que impulsiona esse ecossistema. Apoiamos os desenvolvedores na App Store com muito mais do que distribuição. Continuamos investindo pesadamente em gaming: de novas tecnologias de hardware que entregam o mais alto desempenho sustentado, como o ray tracing acelerado por hardware do A20 Pro e a câmara de vapor de última geração no iPhone 18 Pro; a ferramentas de desenvolvimento, como o Game Porting Toolkit 4, o Metal e os nossos plugins de código aberto da Unity.
Temos observado o crescimento no número de jogos que chegam à App Store, em geral, com mais títulos premium este ano do que no anterior. […] Enquanto muitos são indies, nós estamos vendo mais franquias de consoles e PC chegando ao mobile, já que é um público em expansão para esses jogos.
O executivo também falou sobre a relação da Apple com os desenvolvedores independentes, além de destacar as diferentes formas de levar os jogos a Macs, iPhones e iPads:
Desde o primeiro dia, a App Store foi pensada para equilibrar as condições de descoberta e distribuição, de modo que um título indie possa se equiparar às maiores franquias do entretenimento. […]
Nós queremos dar aos desenvolvedores um ambiente confiável para alcançar usuários ao redor do mundo, dar-lhes suporte em cada passo e ajudá-los a construir negócios bem-sucedidos. […] Para atingir esses objetivos, nós oferecemos modelos de negócio flexíveis. Isso significa que um fenômeno inovador como Balatro pode prosperar como um jogo premium, e também pode encontrar um espaço no serviço Apple Arcade. O importante é que damos aos desenvolvedores a flexibilidade para fazer a melhor escolha e, a todos os jogos e jogadores, a liberdade de jogar como quiserem.
O Apple Arcade conta com mais de 200 títulos no acervo (livres de propagandas ou compras internas), os quais podem ser acessados por até cinco membros de um Compartilhamento Familiar em iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TVs e/ou Apple Vision Pros. O serviço de jogos custa R$14,90 por mês e também faz parte do pacote de assinaturas da empresa, o Apple One.
NOTA DE TRANSPARÊNCIA: O MacMagazine recebe uma pequena comissão sobre vendas concluídas por meio de links deste post, mas você, como consumidor, não paga nada a mais pelos produtos/serviços ao usar os nossos links de afiliado.
On the road into the stadium at Olympia, at the foot of Mount Cronius, ancient Greek athletes passed a stone platform with steps cut through it. A row of bronze statues of Zeus, the god the Games were held to honour, stood beside it. None of them celebrated a victory. Each had been paid for […]
What happened when AI-created bots competed in the classic Blizzard videogame StarCraft? "Struggling to stay apace with its competitors, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra apparently changed strategy mid-tournament and opted to cheat," Kotaku reports:
StarSkirmish is an ongoing clash of AI developed bots in StarCraft: Brood War... Limited to playing as Protoss, each LLM is given an hour to develop a bot in C++, then have them build, harvest and fight on one of three maps... Yesterday, viewers watched as Claude and GPT went against each other and the human created bot Pluto... Struggling to get an edge through the day, [OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra] decided to do what LLMs do best: Lie, cheat and steal. The GPT-6 Astra bot downloaded and tagged in Stardust, a Protoss bot created by Bruce Mackenzie Nielsen back in 2020, considered one of the best of the bests. "I am rolling back GPT-6 Astra's code so its [sic] not contaminated and allowing it to continue," posted StarSkirmish creator Kai McPheeters.
That was Friday. But by Sunday, McPheeters was posting an update on social media. "Can GPT-6 Astra avoid going 0 — 1000?" Two hours later he replied to his own post. "The answer was no."
While AI companies "have repeatedly been accused of stealing the work of humans... I haven't seen an example quite so brazen," writes PC Magazine:
While Astra's bot-based heist is innocuous in isolation, this is hardly the first time an OpenAI LLM has been caught attempting to cheat at a task. Indeed, the company's history of creating deceitful models stretches back almost a decade, to when an early AI model used glitches and exploits to improve its Sonic the Hedgehog completion times.
Il 2026 è stato un grande anno per il gaming su Linux, e lo dobbiamo soprattutto a Valve e al suo lavoro fatto nello sviluppo software - sia dal punto di vista user-facing, con uno SteamOS sempre più maturo per l’uso anche al di fuori di device ufficiali come Steam Deck e Steam Machine, sia a livello di tecnologie sottostanti, soprattutto Proton, il “traduttore” che permette a Linux di eseguire giochi compilati per Windows. Si potrebbe argomentare che la piattaforma ha ancora due grossi ostacoli da superare per diventare una vera alternativa a Windows: il supporto alle GPU NVIDIA e il supporto alle tecnologie anti-cheat.
Per quanto riguarda il primo punto, ci sono buone notizie, anche se è importante precisare da subito che ci vorrà ancora del tempo. In occasione del lancio di Steam Frame Pierre-Loup Griffais, uno dei principali sviluppatori di Valve, parlando con IGN ha detto che la società ha già compiuto un passo importante inserendo il driver NVIDIA nel ramo principale di sviluppo di SteamOS, il che permette ad alcune generazioni di schede video GeForce di inizializzare correttamente il sistema e trasmettere segnale a un display.
Tuttavia, c’è ancora molto lavoro da svolgere. Lo stesso Griffais ha ammesso che esiste un divario significativo tra l’attuale implementazione di SteamOS e le prestazioni offerte dallo stack driver NVIDIA più avanzato disponibile oggi. In altre parole, le GPU compatibili riescono ad avviare il sistema, ma non sono ancora in grado di esprimere tutto il loro potenziale in termini di stabilità, prestazioni e ottimizzazione. Valve sta lavorando attivamente per ridurre questo gap e, secondo il dirigente, i progressi sono tangibili e percepibili su base quotidiana.
Negli ultimi giorni hanno cominciato a circolare diverse notizie riguardo il possibile ridimensionamento del Game Pass, con l'ulteriore abbassamento del prezzo di listino a fronte di una perdita importante, ovvero la presenza dei nuovi giochi al loro day one.
I report entrano anche nel dettagli di altre modifiche (di cui parleremo in seguito), ma la notizia importante delle ultime ore riguarda il fatto che l'azienda abbia affrontato in maniera diretta i rumor in questione, rispondendo però in modo del tutto elusivo, come spesso accade in questi casi. La risposta arriva in seguito ad un'intervista di Paul Tassi di Forbes ad un portavoce dell'azienda, il quale ha dichiarato che, in merito alla possibile ristrutturazione del Pass per il 2027:
Valutiamo costantemente nuove proposizioni di offerta per il Game Pass e guardiamo a cosa funziona per i diversi giocatori suddivisi nei diversi mercati. Oggi non abbiamo modifiche da annunciare o piani che siano stati già finalizzati. Non ci sono modifiche rispetto ai precedenti annunci sui titoli in arrivo al day one su Game Pass Ultimate.
Anti-Tamper and DRM (Digital Rights Management) software developer Denuvo is taking its fight against video game piracy to court by filing a lawsuit against the anonymous game cracker known as “voices38.” According to TorrentFreak, the company claims that the accused bypassed its Anti-Tamper technology in at least 26 PC games and is seeking monetary damages as well as a court order that would prevent further tampering of its DRM.
In its lawsuit filed on September 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Denuvo alleges that the “defendant is a computer hacker who is focused on reverse engineering, hacking, or ‘cracking’ video games employing Denuvo’s Anti-Tamper product. Defendant has bypassed DRM restrictions in copyrighted works, removing protections that allow copyright owners to restrict who may access their works, and allowing for pirated versions of those copyrighted works.” The complaint also named 26 games including popular titles such as Hogwarts Legacy, Black Myth: Wukong, Resident Evil Requiem, and Doom: The Dark Ages.
It is worth mentioning that Denuvo doesn’t actually own the copyrights to any of these games. Meaning that instead of a filing for copyright infringement, the complaint relies on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. It essentially prohibits bypassing a digital lock that controls access to a copyrighted work, or distributing tools and instructions that help others to bypass copyright protections.
What makes the case interesting is that Denuvo does not know the real identity of voices38. It only points to the defendant as “an unknown individual or entity” alongside ten other unnamed defendants. The complaint also references Reddit and Discord accounts as well as Steam profiles that Denuvo believes may be connected to the cracking activity. The company could eventually seek information from these platforms as part of its legal proceedings.
Voices38 has been particularly active in recent months, with reports pointing to a growing number of Denuvo-protected game cracks to the anonymous cracker. Recent releases include Star Wars: Outlaws, Persona 3 Reload, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. For Denuvo, the lawsuit could lead the way in identifying one of the more active figures in the recent video game-cracking scene. That said, the case is still in its early stages, and Denuvo's allegations have yet to be tested in court.
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