We've seen a lot of videogame comeback stories in recent years, like Cyberpunk 2077, No Man's Sky, and possibly even Payday 3 - a bad launch doesn't mean a total failure. But as it stands, Homeworld 3 is struggling on Steam. More than 9,000 people logged in simultaneously to play it on launch day, but during the last 24 hours, the concurrent user base peaked at just 60. Based on recent reviews, Homeworld 3's rating on Valve's store is officially 'mixed,' but if you take lifetime reviews into account, it's still a damning 'mostly negative.' Once a rival to RTS classics like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer, the Gearbox-published third game has so far failed to inspire awe. Now, it seems the makers of Homeworld 3 have removed the oft-debated third-party DRM (digital rights management) software Denuvo.
Most of the criticism of Homeworld 3 is aimed at its campaign and its central narrative. Many players complain that the single-player mode is too short and that the strategy game does not have as good of a story as its two predecessors.
The control system has also been a source of complaints, and some Homeworld fans say the game is too busy and too cluttered to allow for the kind of high-level decision-making one might expect from the strategy genre. In September, developer Blackbird Interactive confirmed that it has revised the Homeworld 3 roadmap and that an enormous amount of new material, including fresh game modes, would arrive for free in November. Ahead of that release, Denuvo DRM seems to have been removed from the RTS.
According to SteamDB, Denuvo was removed from Homeworld 3 on Friday October 25. This followed another series of backend updates tellingly named 'patch 1.3 preview.' Potentially, this is cueing up the launch of everything in the roadmap, scheduled for next month.
Denuvo has been criticized by some PC players who claim that the DRM solution has a negative impact on videogames' performance. Denuvo's product manager Andreas Ullmann recently addressed the DRM solution's reputation, explaining that Denuvo's creators were tired of the "toxicity" around it and that they "will stop letting every claim about [the] product go unanswered."
Try some of the other best RTS games, or maybe the best 4X games and space games available on PC.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.