Conan Exiles Early Access Uses Denuvo

Funcom’s open-world survival game Conan Exiles is available on Steam Early Access now and, unfortunately, it’s using anti-tampering system Denuvo to protect it from piracy. The developers insist that the game, which is an always-online title, does not suffer any performance issues due to the presence of Denuvo, nor due to the use of anti-cheating system Battle-Eye.

“We are utilizing a widespread, industry-standard solution to combat piracy and cheating in Conan Exiles. The reason behind this is simple: to protect all the time, talent, and effort that’s going into the game,” one of the developers at Funcom said on reddit. “We’ve tested for an impact on Conan Exiles’ performance, and have found no evidence that suggests that these services negatively affect how well the game runs.”

While Denuvo may help to delay a game being cracked and pirated, the outcome is an inevitability. Capcom’s recently released survival horror sequel Resident Evil 7, which shipped with Denuvo, was cracked in just five days. Fellow Denuvo user DOOM eventually ditched the anti-tampering tech entirely after the game was cracked, claiming that it only intended its use to protect it during its initial launch window.

Conan Exiles was involved in a different kind of controversy earlier after it was discovered that the game’s character creation tool features sliders to determine the size of naked breasts and penises, endowments which are enhanced by their own physics (NSFW).