'Mass Effect: Andromeda' Update: Developers Remove Anti-Tamper Tech; Facial Animation Fix Underway
It was recently discovered that BioWare, the developer of "Mass Effect: Andromeda," has discreetly disabled the Denuvo protection from the game. Meanwhile, reports have it that developers are still creating the patch to fix facial animations.
BioWare recently released patch 1.09 for the game. Although the release notes did not mention anything about removing the Denuvo support for "Mass Effect: Andromeda," DSOGaming spotted the change subsequently when the patch went live.
Denuvo is one of the anti-tamper technologies used by developers to protect their games from being cracked as it makes sure that the titles are encrypted well.
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Meanwhile, DSOGaming added that even when BioWare removed Denuvo, "Mass Effect: Andromeda" is still protected with ORIGIN.
While BioWare has not yet provided an explanation about the change, the same report also pointed out that removing anti-tamper support from a game is commonly done by developers but they could re-install it again via the next patches.
On the other hand, WCCFTech suggested that BioWare might have removed the Denuvo protection because it had already served its purpose.
In 2016, Denuvo's Robert Hernandez explained to Kotaku why Denuvo was removed from "Doom" several months after its release. Hernandez said: "The simple reason why Denuvo Anti Tamper was removed from Doom was because it had accomplished its purpose by keeping the game safe from piracy during the initial sales window."
He added: "The protection on Doom held up for nearly four months, which is an impressive accomplishment for such a high-profile game."
Meanwhile, patch 1.09 also included several notes to address some aspects of the widely-criticized facial animations in "Mass Effect: Andromeda." Upon the game's release, many fans and reviewers did not mince words in expressing disappointment over the animations.
Four months since the game's launch, it looks like BioWare is still on the path of slowly uploading fixes for the animation issues. In patch 1.09, the changelog says the game update bears "various improvements to facial animations and cinematic scenes."
