Lies of P Developer Adds Controversial DRM Days After Reviews Go Live

Last week, reviews for Lies of P went live, and they were mostly positive. In our review, we said, "If you're a fan of Soulsborne and want to add a spice of rewarding difficulty to your gaming career, you must check out Lies of P," giving it a 4.5/5 score. However, a few days after all of those positive reviews went live, developer Neowiz quietly added the controversial Denuvo DRM tech to Lies of P, immediately drawing the ire of some of the community. 

The news was first spotted by the team at Exputer. Over the years, Denuvo has become very unpopular among the PC gaming crowd. This is because the software sometimes causes performance issues on the platform. Seeing the team wait until reviews had gone live could mean that Lies of P fans playing on PC won't enjoy the same performance that reviewers enjoyed in the pre-release build. 

Of course, it must be said that we don't know if the DRM tech will actually impact performance, but previous precedence has led fans to believe Neowiz is implementing it late in an attempt to sneak it past players while keeping hype high after the reviews. We'll have to wait until Lies of P releases to know if that's actually true, but what is clear is that fans are becoming increasingly unhappy.

Why Are Players Mad About Denuvo in Lies of P?

If you're not familiar with Denuvo DRM, you might be wondering exactly why players are upset that Neowiz is implementing it. On the surface, it may seem like a positive because it's software that developers use to combat piracy. However, sometimes Denuvo leads to performance issues. This includes things like FPS spikes and frame drops in worst-case scenarios. Even if everything works out on the performance side, it is a bit weird that Neowiz decided to do everything in this order.

There are also some concerns that Denuvo's new Unreal Engine Protection will make it harder for mods. Especially in a difficult game like Lies of P, mods are almost guaranteed to be very popular. We're still not sure exactly how that's all going to shake out, but it's yet another reason fans are mad at Neowiz for dropping the DRM tech in at the eleventh hour. 

Lies of P Release Date

Lies of P launches on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on September 19. If you're willing to shell out extra money for the Deluxe Edition, you can actually hop in now because the early access period kicked off on September 15. That said, if you're an Xbox or PC player, it might be worth waiting because Lies of P is coming to Game Pass at launch. If you're already paying for the service, you might as well wait a few days to play at no additional charge. The Deluxe Edition also includes a few cosmetic options but the early access is the big reason to drop an extra $10.