A recent Resident Evil Revelations update has been alleged to contain DRM (digital rights management) software that is causing performance problems and blocking the use of mods in the survival horror game. While RE creator Capcom has previously said that it considers the use of unofficial mods similar or equivalent to cheating, and has also issued a statement regarding the latest Resident Evil Revelations update, one prominent modder for the zombie series says that recent claims regarding DRM are “nonsense.” It follows after the Steam store page for RE Revelations has been review bombed by players, dropping the game’s rating, based on recent feedback, to ‘overwhelmingly negative.’
Following an update for Resident Evil Revelations, players on the Steam forums for the horror game made several posts referring to Enigma, a DRM software that was alleged to have been added to the RE spin-off, claiming that it had caused frame rate drops and crashes.
A video presentation from Capcom’s research and development department previously speculated that games could be better protected against piracy and cheating by using a combination of in-house and third-party DRM solutions. The developer said that the Wednesday, January 10 update had been reverted owing to an “issue,” and would be restored after the issue was resolved.
Resident Evil Revelations has since been review bombed on Steam, receiving 451 negative player responses in the past five days. Now, one predominant Resident Evil modder, who has created tools and mods for Resident Evil 2, RE8, and a variety of other Resident Evil and Capcom games, says that the recent claims regarding DRM are “nonsense.”
“We have no reason to believe Enigma was behind the problems with the Revelations patch and the vast majority of mods still work completely fine with the games that have Enigma Protection,” ‘FluffyQuack,’ creator of ArcTool and RETool, two modding platforms that enable users to create material for Capcom games, says. “Capcom has been adding Enigma to their games for a long while now. Resident Evil 5 got it last year. [The] Street Fighter 6 beta had it two years ago. Ghost Trick has it. And many other games have it.
“I have not seen people report worse performance issues in those games or major glitches as a result of Enigma. We don’t have a reason yet to believe that Enigma was the cause of the crashes or performance issues in the new Revelations patch.
“Capcom has shown some anti-mod behavior the past years, for instance, with the various layers of protections added to RE Engine games,” FluffyQuack continues. “I don’t think this is specifically to target mods, but rather an overall attempt to combat piracy and cheating (and modding as an extension).”
FluffyQuack says that Enigma only affects the use of mods in a “very specific way,” and that Capcom has not “done anything substantial” to prevent modding in its games so far. PCGamesN has contacted Capcom regarding Enigma and the recent Resident Evil Revelations patch, and will update this story with any comment or statement.
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