Umair
Above Hollow Knight Silksong, Elden Ring Nightreign, and Ark 2, new life sim InZOI is the most wishlisted game on Steam right now. Soon to be released, the would-be Sims 4 rival naturally has a lot of expectations on its shoulders. Now, eponymous developer InZOI Studio says that, in order to provide players with what they want and to answer concerns and criticisms it has received so far, it has decided to remove from InZOI Denuvo Anti Tamper, the often-controversial piracy protection software used by many modern triple-A games.
The InZOI release date is about to land and, given that the life game is top of the global Steam wishlist chart, anticipation, seemingly, could not be higher. In just a few short days, InZOI will finally arrive. But before then, its developer says that it is removing Denuvo in order to “align with what players wanted,” and to allow InZOI to be more accessible.
“Recently, we’ve seen growing concern around the implementation of the Denuvo anti-tamper solution in InZOI,” producer and director Hyungjun ‘Kjun’ Kim says. “To address the most important point, we have decided to remove Denuvo from the early-access build of InZOI.”
“We initially chose to implement Denuvo as a way to protect the game from illegal distribution. At the time, we believed this would help ensure fairness for players who had properly purchased the game. However, after taking a closer look at community feedback, we quickly realized that this approach did not align with what our players wanted.
“Our initial application of Denuvo on our main development build made it so that the InZOI Creative Studio demo build, a branch from the main build, was also applied with the same anti-tamper. Unfortunately, we failed to properly inform our players of this application during the demo period, and we sincerely apologize for that oversight.”
Kjun explains that, while removing the Denuvo potentially increases the risk that InZOI may be pirated, it will also allow for more “freedom” among players. The anti-tamper solution, which is used by other popular games including Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Civilization 7, is designed to prevent people from accessing protected game files and code.
“We understand that removing Denuvo increases the risk of the game being cracked and illegally distributed after release,” Kjun continues. “At the same time, we believe it opens up a valuable opportunity: it allows InZOI to become more freely configurable, unlocking new ways for players to shape new experiences for other players. We believe enabling this freedom from the very beginning will lead to innovative and long-lasting enjoyment for the community.
“We are committed to making InZOI a highly moddable game. With the removal of Denuvo, we hope to foster an even more open environment for modders to create and share unique experiences for other players.
“We’ve come to understand that Denuvo could negatively impact the player experience far more than we originally anticipated,” Kjun continues. “As a development team committed to putting players first, the decision to remove the anti-tamper solution became a clear one. We will continue to prioritize your feedback and make well-informed decisions throughout our early-access development.
“We want to sincerely apologize for not aligning more closely with player expectations on this sensitive issue. We regret the concern and confusion this has caused within the community, and we’re committed to rebuilding your trust as we move forward in developing the best possible experience.”
In the past, some players have claimed that games that include Denuvo suffer from increased performance problems on PC. In 2024, Denuvo’s product manager Andreas Ullman explained that the company was sick of the “toxicity” around its DRM (digital rights management) software, and didn’t want to “leave the floor to these people who are posting all things about us anymore.”
Kjun recently spoke exclusively to PCGamesN about InZOI’s approach to the life game genre, and how it will – and will not – compete with The Sims 4.
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