Doom Eternal Fans Are Miffed About And Wary Of Its New Denuvo Anti-cheating Update

Doom Eternal got its first update last Thursday, and while some changes are minor, standard fare such as quality-of-life improvements and a tweaked progression system, the Denuvo Anti-Cheat system it has implemented has not gone down well with players.

According to the blog posted by Denuvo the day of the update, the anti-cheat software it's implementing runs in the background of PC players' games, collecting data on how the OS interacts with the game and sending that data to Amazon-hosted servers for monitoring cheating detection. The blog post says the system "does not take screenshots, scan your file system or stream shellcode from the internet." Denuvo also says the system installs when you boot up the game and de-installs when you de-install Doom Eternal. They also say the driver should not run when the game is not running.

What gives players cause for concern is the level of privileged access Denuvo has. Their anti-cheat uses a kernel-mode driver, giving Denuvo access to players' operating system. If a weakness is found in Denuvo, players worry, then their PCs could be at risk. Furthermore, the installation of the anti-cheat is automatic and very quiet, as there are no notifications the anti-cheat is even being installed.

These factors led to a wave of review bombing on Steam, as a flood of negative reviews related to the Denuvo update hit the page. Some fans adamantly did not recommend the game with the addition while others called for refunds if they could get them. A top Reddit post advises players to uninstall the game and offers a count of issues players have already encountered with Denuvo, including myriad performance issues and the driver Driver continuing to run even after it is "uninstalled and reinstalling itself without the game running.

The controversy was covered in a video by Jim Sterling, who argued that while Doom has had cheating issues in the past, players who are miffed at Denuvo being thrust upon them are in the right.