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There are a bunch of ways that developers can protect their games from being stolen, and one of the most common is Denuvo DRM. This is an anti-fraud system that has to stop people from taking the game and installing it on other computers very quickly, which would kill piracy. However, the DRM isn’t great and can lead to performance drops. They aren’t significant, but for games that are very demanding and we already need to make compromises to scrape by, getting rid of it could really help. That’s why I tend to celebrate whenever it’s removed, since it could make games perform a bit better. And that is now the case for Atomic Heart.

Atomic Heart

Yesterday, Atomic Heart got a new patch that completely removed Denuvo DRM. While it didn’t note the change in the patch notes, it was clearly removed. This means that we may see a performance boost when playing the game on the Steam Deck. It wouldn’t be by much, but it’s still a possibility that makes me extremely excited.

The game has been out for over three years now, so it does make logical sense to remove it at this time. I understand why developers want to protect their games and put DRM on them, but I start to take issue when it’s going to negatively affect how we enjoy the game. Denuvo can be a pain to test games on the Steam Deck with, because it will flag every time I change a Proton layer and shut down the game for 24 hours. So, I am quite excited whenever Denuvo is removed since it just makes playing the game easier.

For now, we can rejoice and be excited that Atomic Heart may have its performance improved a bit, and it’ll be easier to switch layers to find the best one to play the game on the Steam Deck. The Steam store page still says it has Denuvo, but based on the game files, it has been removed.

Source: DSOGaming

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Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
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