Image: DC / Warner Bros. / Kotaku / Wilrow Hood (Shutterstock)
Gotham Knights received its first significant post-launch patch on PC yesterday. The update aimed to fix online multiplayer bugs and clear some bugs. Unfortunately, it also temporarily crushed the Batman game’s Denuvo DRM protections, apparently leaving it vulnerable to hackers. This is one way to take them by surprise.
The PC patch for the struggling co-op adventure rolled out last night, and it didn’t take long for the game’s crackers to notice that the new version released on Steam was missing Denuvo. The news began circulating on sites like the CrackWatch subreddit, and even led to the belief that Warner Bros. had removed the DRM on purpose. I hadn’t done it.
SteamDB logs show that a new build that had Denuvo’s tamper protection in place was released about 14 hours later, but the damage was obviously done. People playing the new hackable version of Gotham Knights are unlikely to be able to participate in the game’s multiplayer, a focal point of the loot-based fighter, and hackers won’t be able to enjoy future patch fixes or content updates. Now, they will probably have a free run of the single player campaign.
Kotaku reached out to Warner Bros. to make comments.
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Denuvo’s protection is controversial among some PC users, in part because it limits how well they can store and play a game. It is also believed to negatively affect the performance of PC games that use it. Game publishers often remove DRM weeks or months after release, especially if and when hackers “crack” it. It is rarely dropped by accident and then restored.
Of course, the biggest problem for Gotham Knights is that it’s just not that good, especially for a game that’s been in development for many years, is one of the first $70 next-gen exclusive titles, and is clearly inspired by the very best Arkham Trilogy of Batman games. While it’s unclear what new content Warner Bros. might have in store. Montreal, promises a much bigger performance upgrade in the near future.
This patch will also be targeting consoles and will fix some of the frame rate drops on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While Gotham Knights is controversially locked at 30fps on consoles, it often drops below during certain cutscenes and when patrolling Gotham while there are large hills of enemies. As reported by Digital Foundry, there are also many performance issues on PC. Hopefully, they will be addressed as well.