An update to Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis' Steam page suggests that the PC release is no longer using Denuvo DRM.

This update was made on September 30 and was noticed earlier today on sites such as ResetEra. As we can see on SteamDB, the update log clearly states that the publisher has "removed 3rd-Party DRM" from the game, specifically Denuvo Anti-tamper. DRM like Denuvo is often blamed for performance issues on PC, so fans are often angered by its inclusion in new releases.

This Steam update comes four months before Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis' launch. Typically, we would expect Denuvo to only be removed several months after launch, when the most important sales period is over.

The purpose of Denuvo DRM is to protect games against piracy. However, because it is so unpopular, games that use it have seemingly become the target for pirates, who put even more effort into cracking these games shortly after launch.

That is because Denuvo has been linked to performance issues in a whole host of games, perhaps most controversially with Resident Evil Village back in 2021, when it turned out that a pirated version of the game without DRM was playing better than the official release. Unsurprisingly, Denuvo has consistently denied links between its software and performance issues.

The fact that it has now been removed from Legacy of Atlantis does not mean we are totally out of the woods. Increasingly, we're seeing publishers add it at the last minute , when pre-orders would already have come in.

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