Middle-earth: Shadow of War has already been cracked

A lot can happen in a day. For instance: the Denuvo software you use to protect your game can be cracked in one day, as several publishers are learning.

For those that aren’t aware, Deunvo is digital rights management software that is meant to protect games from being cracked by pirates. In 2016 the software was heralded as the saving grace of video game publishers as pirates struggled to crack open games such as Just Cause 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Just this morning Middle-earth: Shadow of War appeared on torrent site The Pirate Bay where it joins Total War: Warhammer 2 and FIFA 18. Both of those games also used Denuvo protection.

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At time of writing the file has been “leeched” 8 707 times. The user who uploaded the file has uploaded a number of other games to The Piratebay including the aforementioned Total War: Warhammer 2, and Cuphead.

Over on Steam Middle-earth: Shadow of War is doing rather well. Despite Warner Bros. / Monolith’s insistence to include controversial loot boxes in the game, 194 228 users own the game on Steam according to Steam Spy figures.

The game is number five on Steam’s own top played games chart behind Team Fortress 2 and just ahead of Warframe. Ironically, both of those games also contain microtransactions, but they aren’t charging R929 for the base game.