Denuvo DRM has suddenly been removed from Visions of Mana, six months after launch. The newest JRPG in the Mana series was released with the anti-tamper technology last year, but a new update on Steam shows that Denuvo is no longer present in the game. Denuvo’s inclusion in videogames has remained controversial for years, and now Visions of Mana is the latest in a long line of releases to remove the technology, but only after some time.
Since it launched, Visions of Mana has remained a relatively well-liked JRPG. Its Metacritic average is 75 out of 100, and its Steam user score sits at a similar 78% from over 1,700 reviews. Visions of Mana is a solid entry in the series, then, and if you’ve been holding off now might be the time to try it.
Now, according to SteamDB and a look at the front end of Valve’s store, Denuvo DRM has been removed from the game. An update from Tuesday February 25 says the game “removed 3rd-Party DRM – Denuvo Anti-Tamper,” and a label showing it on the Steam page has also disappeared.
Denuvo has been criticized by many players for years now, as they claim that the DRM solution actually has a negative impact on performance. The technology aims to prevent piracy, but some say it can also hamper CPU usage. In response, Andreas Ullmann, Denuvo’s product manager, has said the developer is tired of all the “toxicity” around the product, and will “stop letting every claim about [the] product go unanswered.”
You don’t even need to worry about Denuvo if you just want to sample Visions of Mana, however, because there’s a demo on Steam you can try now. While this early slice of the game lets you trial the story, battles, and exploration, Square Enix notes that the section the demo is in has been changed somewhat to give you a better indication of what the full game is like.
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