Dragon Age: The Veilguard Confirmed To Have No Denuvo Or Any DRM on PC

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While I do have my worries, I will say that the decisions behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard continue to give me optimism! In a recent post on Steam regarding the game, developer Bioware released an update detailing PC specifications for the game, which includes more detailed PC requirements and global launch times. This also included the fact that on PC, the game will have no DRM at all!

Further down in the post, BioWare talks about preload and launch times for the game ahead of its October 31st release date. Xbox Series X/S will be able to load starting yesterday, while PS5 will be able to load starting October 29th. However, for PC, there will be no preload at all. BioWare states that the reason for this is that there will be no third-party DRM at all, which includes programs like Denuvo being attacked by the game. This is especially nice for playing on Steam Deck since Denuvo can cause unwanted stutters and performance issues. It also seems like this includes any EA DRM as well.

I am extremely pleased to see this, but it doesn't do a lot to quell my initial performance concerns with Dragon Age: The Veilguard on Steam Deck. When looking at the requirements, everything seems to be geared towards working on the Steam Deck for the minimum settings with Raytracing off, except for RAM usage. The RAM requirement is 16GB, which is the max that the Steam Deck has, and that doesn't include any VRAM that the game may need. Based on the GPUs provided, it would signify needing 4GB of VRAM.

When it comes to games that hit the 16GB limit, like Black Myth: Wukong, we will completely crash the system and require a reboot. We may be able to circumvent RAM crashes by using CryoUtilities to artificially increase RAM with swap files, but there will still be some performance drops as this artificial RAM is slower. If this is the case, the game definitely shouldn't be Verified, but the team is still touting being Steam Deck Verified, so hopefully, I am wrong.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard can be pre-purchased on Steam for $59.99.

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