Starfield might not feature Denuvo anti-piracy

The AntiDRM Twitter account posted a rather intriguing update today. According to their information, Bethesda's upcoming hit Starfield might not feature built-in Denuvo anti-piracy protection.

It's worth reminding that Denuvo anti-piracy protection primarily harms not the hypothetical pirates who crack popular games at launch, but legitimate gamers who've paid their hard-earned money for the game. More often than not, a project's performance with Denuvo built-in is significantly worse than without it, leading to issues like freezes, crashes, and lower FPS.

According to available information, a dataminer analyzed Starfield's files on Xbox Game Pass for PC and discovered that its executable file weighs in at just 90 MB. In contrast, similar files with Denuvo built-in typically occupy much more storage: around 200-300 MB.

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However, as many users quickly pointed out under the social media post, there's not much to celebrate just yet. An executable file of this size could indicate either a lack of protection or simply be a placeholder. In other words, the game's executable file might be replaced with one containing Denuvo upon release.

One thing is certain: such a resource-hungry protection scheme will in no way benefit a game as massive and ambitious as Starfield.