Capcom removes Denuvo from its Resident Evil 4 Remake

Capcom removes Denuvo from Resident Evil 4’s PC version with a fresh update

Capcom has released a new update for the PC version of Resident Evil 4 (the 2023 remake), removing Denuvo from the game. This is an undocumented change to the PC version of the game, with Capcom releasing new patch notes for this update. However, all mentions of Denuvo have been removed from the game’s Steam page. Furthermore, SteamDB logs have confirmed that Resident Evil 4’s .exe file is now 422MB smaller. Large file size reductions for .exe files are common when Denuvo is removed from a game.

Despite its age, Resident Evil 4’s 2023 remake remains one of the series’ most played entries. Today, the game has reached a peak player count of over 10,000, surpassing all other games in the series.

Why do PC gamers hate Denuvo?

Denuvo is a controversial anti-tamper technology designed to prevent piracy of PC games. While preventing piracy is beneficial for developers, Denuvo’s technology has been found to negatively affect game performance. Additionally, Denuvo interferes with modding many games, another factor that makes the technology unpopular among PC gamers. Most conversations about Denuvo online involve PC gamers expressing their dislike of the anti-tamper technology. With this in mind, we can see why removing Denuvo’s tech from games is often seen as a popular move.

Has removing Denuvo boosted the PC performance of Resident Evil 4?

So far, there have been no reports of notable performance gains as a result of Resident Evil 4’s Denuvo removal update. Sadly, we do not have recent pre-patch performance data for this game, which prevents us from doing any comparative testing.

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