2K and DRM company Denuvo have reportedly added new 14-day checks to certain games, as hackers claim Denuvo’s single-player protection has been fully cracked.
Denuvo’s anti-tamper software has been the source of controversy for some time now, as some players believe it can have an adverse effect on PC game performance.
At the end of last year, the game pirating community created a bypass which installs a driver at a PC’s kernel level, and can intercept and respond to Denuvo security checks.
As a result, Tom’s Hardware reported earlier this month that Denuvo has essentially been blown open as a result of this, making it possible for pirates to release hacked DRM-free versions of triple-A PC games on the day they’re released.
Now Tom’s Hardware has reported that Denuvo and 2K have teamed up to add further security to checks to some 2K games, in an attempt to retain control over them.
According to the claim, titles such as NBA 2K25, NBA 2K26 and Marvel’s Midnight Suns now use an authorization token, which expires after 14 days.
When this token runs out, the game will not load unless players connect online again, authorise their install and get a new authorization token (at which point the 14-day timer will start again).
As Tom’s Hardware notes, this is impossible for the Denuvo bypass to beat, because it involves a call and response to Denuvo’s actual servers.
The change theoretically means that players who haven’t played these games in the past two weeks may not be able to play them on the move on devices such as the Steam Deck, unless they can connect it to an internet connection.
The news comes in the same week as reports that PlayStation has seemingly added 30-day timers to all new digital PS5 and PS4 purchases.
Although Sony has yet to officially confirm it, a number of players have posted examples of new games they bought now requiring to have online checks every 30 days, or else they will become unplayable.
