Assassin's Creed Shadows Denuvo DRM Cracked After 16 Months
voices38 strikes again, but Denuvo managed to hold out a lot longer this time around.
Suggested Pre-read: We briefly discussed Denuvo’s ongoing troubles with the hypervisor bypass in this previous post.
Introduction
Released on March 20, 2025, across macOS, Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the latest high-profile victim to have its Denuvo DRM protection defeated. And who else but voices38 to do it again? Today, voices38 is arguably the most prominent game pirate on the internet.
Reception
Shadows received favorable reviews across most major gaming publications. Based on the report below published by the market research firm Circana, it became the best-selling game in the US in March 2025.
Crack
The highly popular pirate voices38 specifically targets Denuvo protected games and consistently finds ways to break through their defenses. In fact, voices38 was able to crack Lego Batman on Day 1 of its release.
Denuvo’s main claim to fame is its ability to protect the initial launch sales cycle for game publishers. While the Lego Batman release was a public disaster for Denuvo, the company managed to hold out longer with 007 Firstlight, which released earlier this year.
A hypervisor bypass method did emerge a few months ago for Shadows, but as we have discussed in the past, these cracking techniques remain notoriously complex due to the virtualization layer.
