Cracking the Code: The Dilemma of Safeguarding Games Without Sacrificing Their Allure

We all like mods in video games. They add better graphics, ray tracing to games from the 90s, impossible features, and often fix issues that developers don’t want to solve. Well, it seems that the industry doesn’t want modders to meddle in their work.

As we were saying, modding is about to become much more challenging in the near future due to a new Unreal Engine protection technology that could be used in conjunction with Denuvo or independently.

As confirmed on its official page, the Unreal Engine protection technology is a feature designed to prevent malicious users from manipulating games created with Unreal Engine.

This solution is easy to integrate into any game at a binary level and will prevent users from attempting data extraction, block cheaters, protect game data files from decryption, block the use of debugging consoles in the game, and hide entry points to prevent game modifications.

An unintended side effect: goodbye to mods

Needless to say, this is extremely detrimental to modding, as it will greatly hinder developers’ access to game files, if not make it impossible.

Furthermore, it’s known that Denuvo impacts the performance of any game that implements it, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the Unreal Engine protection also had a graphical impact – which is almost as bad as restricting modding, especially considering the numerous performance issues in UE 4 games.

? Elevating #GameSecurity: Introducing Denuvo's Unreal Engine Protection and Integrity Verification features at @gamescom! ??️ We are proud to unveil two groundbreaking additions to our lineup. Read more: https://t.co/Ar9QnxrnpD#Denuvo #Cybersecurity #ProtectYourGames #Gaming pic.twitter.com/na2tNzxDu6

— Denuvo by Irdeto (@gamingatdenuvo) August 22, 2023

In addition to the Unreal Engine protection, they have also announced Integrity Verification, which will enable developers to verify the integrity of their own game code, safeguarding it against static and dynamic manipulation, essentially preventing users from making any changes to the code both at the start and during gameplay.

Since the Unreal Engine Protection technology has only been announced, it’s not clear when developers will start using it or how it will truly impact games. But the future looks grim for modding.

Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.