Tekken 8 Won't Have Denuvo, Katsuhiro Harada Confirms

It seems that in recent months, an increasing number of developers and gamers have been expressing their reservations about Denuvo, an anti-tamper technology and digital rights management (DRM) system developed by Irdeto that many studios include in their games to make it slightly harder to pirate the titles.

Users frequently raise concerns that games featuring Denuvo tend to operate at a slower pace compared to those without it, drawing comparisons between the official versions of games and their hacked counterparts. In a recent series of tests conducted on various games by YetTea, it was demonstrated that Denuvo's presence leads to a reduction in frame rates and longer boot times for the games. Interestingly, Irdeto vehemently denies these findings.

The controversy surrounding the use of Denuvo encouraged many developers to remove the DRM from their games, even from those that featured the system for years, like, for instance, Capcom's Resident Evil Village.

A Twitter user known as PC_enjoyer, who tracks the removal of Denuvo from games and notes when the DRM is featured in new titles, has recently noticed that Tekken 8, Bandai Namco's upcoming fighting game and a continuation of the Tekken series, will feature Denuvo, as per the game's official End User License Agreement. PC_enjoyer shared their findings online, posting a tweet, now deleted, regarding the problem.

In response to this tweet, Tekken 8 Game Director Katsuhiro Harada contradicted the EULA, saying that the upcoming game won't, in fact, feature Denuvo. According to the director, the agreement in question is most likely a copy/paste of Tekken 7's, a game that actually features the DRM, noting that there are currently "no plans to introduce Denuvo or anything else in Tekken 8."

Harada also encouraged gamers not to complain about the matter. "Stop your tedious allergic reactions to every single thing and sit quietly (sit the hell down)," the developer wrote in response to PC_enjoyer's original tweet.

Tekken 8 was officially announced back in September 2022 during PlayStation's State of Play event. The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S at an undisclosed date. You can learn more about Tekken 8 here.

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