Sonic Mania Encore DLC's Denuvo implementation reportedly to blame for problems Steam users are facing
With the arrival of Sonic Mania's Encore DLC on PC, players are once again calling out Denuvo's implementation.
Sonic Mania has had Denuvo since it launched last year. The DRM was initially thought to be responsible for the game requiring an internet connection on every launch.
Sega later clarified that this was the result of a bug, which has since been fixed. Denuvo, however, managed to protect the game from being cracked for only eight days.
The DRM has not been removed, but troubles arose again with the release of the Encore DLC this week, which upgrades the game to the Plus version. On the Steam forums, players are complaining about a couple of problems with the DLC.
The first is an issue that slows the game down in the Replays menu. There's also talk about slowdowns that occur in different parts of the game.
Hacker Voksi_RVT, who's had a hand in creating Denuvo cracks in the past, says the Replays menu slowdown is caused by a faulty DRM trigger in the time attack menu. Though we have no way of verifying this, the cracker claims this causes Denuvo to "continue writing in its section until the game is closed, which causes massive game slowdown."
Another Steam user shared their experience about an endlessly looping loading screen, which the hacker believes is another failed anti-tamper trigger. It's supposedly there to stop hackers from cracking the game, but it's evidently happening for legitimate owners.
In most cases, according to Voksi_RVT, failed implementation of Denuvo is the root the cause. "Sega rushed the new Denuvo implementation and didn't test it properly," said the cracker.
Once again, it's worth taking what Voksi_RVT says with a grain of salt, but until Sega is able to fix these issues for legitimate customers, it's only ever going to fuel similar posts further.
Sega fixed the internet connection issue with the original Sonic Mania release relatively quickly, so this could be another glitch born out of the DRM's implementation. It also seems the DLC is on its way to getting cracked.
Alex reviewed Sonic Mania Plus earlier this week, calling it a a modern classic refined.