Homeworld 3 ditches controversial Denuvo, the latest in a line of PC games to drop the DRM

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Homeworld 3 is the latest PC game to drop the controversial Denuvo DRM protection.

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Homeworld 3 looks pretty slick, though it can be oddly iffy in terms of how smooth it is with various PC configurations (Image Credit: Gearbox / Valve)

Neowin noticed the move and reports it was made in a stealthy manner, with no formal announcement of the ditching of Denuvo by developer Blackbird (or publisher Gearbox).

Homeworld 3 arrived back in May 2024 to a very lukewarm reception from fans, who particularly rubbished the game's storyline. Also, as you might imagine, the inclusion of Denuvo was not popular in some quarters - well, many quarters, let's face it - as the DRM system is often blamed for dragging down the performance of the games that incorporate it. (And substantially, at least if some theories are correct - and we should note they are just theories).

How do we know the DRM is gone? Neowin points out that on SteamDB there's a change of the Homeworld 3 EXE file which is now way more compact (previously it was in the order of 400MB).

The reason for this slimming down is the junking of Denuvo, and on top of that, the Steam page for Homeworld 3 previously showed that Denuvo was used, with this now having been removed from the game's blurb.

The move comes ahead of a big update for the game due in November, which will tweak a lot of the pain points for the player base (hopefully).

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It's no secret that Denuvo is very unpopular with a good many PC gamers (Image Credit: Gearbox / Valve)

Anecdotal frame rate gains

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor also dropped Denuvo a couple of months back, and when that happened, a lot of players anecdotally observed some quite big jumps in their frame rates.

However, there was an update with optimizations applied (and bug fixes too) at the same time as removing the DRM, so those Star Wars Jedi: Survivor frame rate boosts could be down to those measures.

The more cynical have naturally suggested that it's convenient that any possible measurement of the effect of dropping Denuvo here was obscured by the simultaneous performance smoothing measures applied in the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor patch.

Other titles in recent history to drop Denuvo include Resident Evil Village, PayDay 3, Doom Eternal, and of course the freshly released Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been declared DRM-free. (A game that we're looking forward to playing ourselves - going by the reviews, it's looking pretty compelling).

Often developers will wait until a game has sold through its initial phase of shifting units in a big way, before dropping DRM, when there's less of a perceived threat from folks potentially pirating the title.

With Homeworld 3, giving Denuvo the elbow is likely part of the push to recover the game's reputation alongside that major patch which, as we mentioned, is coming in November.

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