IO Interactive will release 007 First Light on May 27th. And an hour ago, the publisher added the Denuvo anti-tamper tech to its Steam store page.
As we can clearly see from the SteamDB package history, Denuvo was added just an hour ago. 007 First Light has been available for pre-order for quite some time, making this an anti-consumer move by IO Interactive. Normally, you’d expect a publisher to include Denuvo the moment it makes a game available for pre-order.
What’s funny here is that IO Interactive had previously removed Denuvo from Hitman 1 and 2. Then, the team released HITMAN World of Assassination without it. So, I don’t know why they have gone backwards. You’d expect the game to come out without it.
This is exactly what Warner Bros has also done with LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. As IO Interactive did, Warner Bros added Denuvo to LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight two weeks before its official launch.
And now, it will be interesting to see when the HYPERVISOR bypass will come out. Will the game be bypassed before its official release? Most likely. According to the devs, 007 First Light will be made available to those who pre-order it a day before release. So, I’m almost certain the HYPERVISOR bypass will appear on May 26th.
What also sucks here is that the PC version will not launch with its Path Tracing effects. Instead, IO Interactive plans to add them sometime in Summer 2026.
Anyway, let’s hope that IO Interactive will remove Denuvo sometime in 2027. After all, the team has done this in the past. So, it might follow the example of some other publishers.
For instance, Capcom has removed it from a lot of its PC releases. In November 2025, Capcom removed it from Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny. Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, and Resident Evil Village are also Denuvo-free as we speak. Similarly, Resident Evil 2 Remake and Resident Evil 3 Remake no longer use it. In July 2025, the Japanese team also removed it from Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. Plus, Capcom has recently removed it from Resident Evil 4 Remake. So, it will be interesting to see when the team will remove it from Requiem.
Square Enix is another publisher that has removed it from some of its games. To be more precise, SE has removed it from DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake. In December 2025, it also removed it from Just Cause 3. Square Enix has also removed Denuvo from The Diofield Chronicle, VALKYRIE ELYSIUM, TRIANGLE STRATEGY, LIVE A LIVE, and Forspoken. Moreover, both Octopath Traveler and its sequel no longer use it. And that’s not all. In May 2024, SE removed it from Star Ocean The Second Story R. Finally, in March 2025, the publisher removed it from Final Fantasy 16.
And that’s not all. Bethesda’s Wolfenstein Youngblood, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Doom Eternal no longer have it. Then we have Bandai Namco, which has removed it from Tekken 7 and NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER.
In March 2023, KRAFTON removed Denuvo from The Callisto Protocol. NEOWIZ has also removed it from its Souls-like game, Lies of P. In October 2024, Gearbox removed it from Homeworld 3, too.
Finally, Warner Bros has removed Denuvo from Gotham Knights, Back 4 Blood, and Mortal Kombat 11.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email