MONSTER HUNTER RISE adds new DRM that breaks it on Steam Deck (UPDATED)

Steam really should add a feature where the user can easily pick a older version.

I have been seeing it too many times the last few years where old games suddenly get a shitty launcher added or, like in this case, a DRM added/replaced that breaks a game that was working fine before.

We can hope.

Fortunately, the DRM for this has already been cracked. Probably not wise to test it on a live Steam account, though.

A reminder that Enigma is developed by a russian company, and they are trying to actively hide that fact.
Also, check this post out: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2183650/discussions/0/7091547146187298312/

Their own accounts tweet out stuff like "Monster Hunter is verified" - so they clearly care about that.

DRM is horrible. It is literally MANAGEMENT OF THE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE BY CORPORATIONS

This also highlights my biggest problem with the current classification of deck/proton compatibility: support from the dev remains unofficial (if present at all) in most cases.

Meaning that publishers get to claim plausible deniability, valve gets to blame the publisher for breaking compatibility, and linux based players lose access to the game on their os of choice with no clear line of responsibility to get support for the game they likely would not have obtained had it not gotten classified.


Last edited by emphy on 22 January 2024 at 12:39 pm UTC

Steam really should add a feature where the user can easily pick a older version.

I have been seeing it too many times the last few years where old games suddenly get a shitty launcher added or, like in this case, a DRM added/replaced that breaks a game that was working fine before.

We can hope.

Technically not that difficult if the game has no online DRM. You can do it manually with some SteamDB data and the steam console, so it shouldn't be that difficult to automate. I don't expect Valve to do this as part of the Steam client though.

I'm not sure it would help this game since it definitely has an online component. But this retrofitting confirms that my refusal to purchase single player games with 3rd party dependencies is the right choice.

Think that Verified icon should be taken away from them when things like this happens.

Once again, Publishers are going against their customers. What is even the point of changing the DRM years later when the game has already been pirated and later updates won't matter much?

This move (Capcom changing/adding DRM for Enigma) feels shady like friends giving each other a favor. Capcom gives business to Enigma, and in return, Capcom gets a """good""" deal on a DRM.

I was going to get back into MH, but seems like Capcom doesn't want my money; oh well, I can give it to GOG and better publishers instead

This also highlights my biggest problem with the current classification of deck/proton compatibility: support from the dev remains unofficial (if present at all) in most cases.

Meaning that publishers get to claim plausible deniability, valve gets to blame the publisher for breaking compatibility, and linux based players lose access to the game on their os of choice with no clear line of responsibility to get support for the game they likely would not have obtained had it not gotten classified.

And that is unlikely to ever change due to the very nature of Proton. While DXVK has some suggestions on what Direct X features to avoid to ensure compatibility with DXVK, it's mostly out of the developer's hands, for better or for worse.

You win some, you lose some.

What is even the point of changing the DRM years later when the game has already been pirated and later updates won't matter much?

Ooh.
I know.
A. Denuvo has a strong reputation in the industry, but maintains a subscription model causing developers to often switch away from it when a game becomes less popular.
B. Capcom just had an unfortunate clash with its modder community and wants to beef up its defenses.


Last edited by LoudTechie on 22 January 2024 at 2:13 pm UTC

B. Capcom just had an unfortunate clash with its modder community and wants to beef up its defenses.

The creator of the Fluffy Mod Manager, a modding tool for some Capcom games, said that Enigma DRM don't interfere with mods unless it injects DLL.

This also highlights my biggest problem with the current classification of deck/proton compatibility: support from the dev remains unofficial (if present at all) in most cases.

Valve tried the alternative already with the Steam Machines and discovered that game developers can't be trusted to support and maintain their games on Linux machines. That's why Proton and the Steam Linux Runtime exist - so that Valve can make a best effort to get and keep things working on Linux in the face of developer indifference or hostility.

The only thing that will make game developers care enough to put the effort in themselves is bigger market share for Linux.

It amazes me that executives keep falling for this. The marketing for these DRM companies must be brilliant. They prey on fear, and the craziest part is, it doesn't even benefit the game companies.

Inevitably, the "pirates" crack the DRM, so the only people DRM ends up hurting are the paying customers.

Think that Verified icon should be taken away from them when things like this happens.

That did happen to EA after they blanket-broke their games with a blanket update to their launcher. It took a while till Valve got round to it (a small number of weeks as I recall) but it did happen. Ultimately it got fixed and those games started working again, and then got their ticks again.

The Deck Verified rating is a service for Valve's customers to increase confidence in buying things from Valve's store to play on Valve's hardware. A game that doesn't work will get Valve saying that it doesn't work... but on Valve Time.

Inevitably, the "pirates" crack the DRM, so the only people DRM ends up hurting are the paying customers.

That's not quite the case anymore with Denuvo.

We've been discussing this on the forum, and there are several other games known to be afflicted;

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection Vol. 1 & 2
Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
Strider
Resident Evil 5

Moreover, none of these are declared on their Steam pages, which I've seen suggested elsewhere might be in breach of the law in some regions. It annoyed me to learn of this second-hand, to be honest.

My response was to uninstall the handful of Capcom titles I've got and also remove the Proton files (one of them being the Mega Man Zero/ZX compilation, which, as above, definitely has it), because clearly I can't trust any of them now. I presume that, since Proton is basically a container of sorts, I should have no issues as a result of this? (I've never encountered this before.)

Not a company I'll be doing business with again. I was willing to give them another chance if they re-thought this anti-consumer crusade, but the trust is gone now - they're now just a malware vendor, in my books.

It amazes me that executives keep falling for this. The marketing for these DRM companies must be brilliant. They prey on fear, and the craziest part is, it doesn't even benefit the game companies.

Inevitably, the "pirates" crack the DRM, so the only people DRM ends up hurting are the paying customers.

This isn't about piracy - it's because, in their eyes, Chun-Li was dishonoured by a recent incident where a tournament-organiser accidentally left a naked Chun-Li mod active whilst streaming the event online. It blew up in Japan, and Capcom decided that we're all stupid and all think that they did this officially (and put Thomas the Tank Engine in Resident Evil officially, and so on), which led to them decreeing that mods are the same as cheats and that they'll be doubling down on DRM. They also charmingly naively think that consoles are free of this, which goes to show how out-of-touch they are; Anyone who's tried to play a Nintendo Switch online will know how wrong that belief is.

There's a short video about it here, but the full 50-minute official presentation is well worth watching - Capcom clearly has nothing but contempt for PC-gamers.

Word is floating around (and anyone who's been a Capcom fan and knows the company's history is likely to believe it - I know I do) that this has resulted in the older members of the company (which is family-run, by a father/son duo, and there are several relatives on the board as well if memory serves) revoking power from the younger set who pulled the company out of the depths after the older group's previous anti-consumer crusades about 15 or so years ago.


Last edited by Pengling on 22 January 2024 at 3:23 pm UTC

Inevitably, the "pirates" crack the DRM, so the only people DRM ends up hurting are the paying customers.

That's not quite the case anymore with Denuvo.

A. they just switched away from Denuvo.
B. Denuvo cracks still happen, but you're right it's the strongest I know of(At least every version of football manager up to 2023 and Hogwards Legacy have fallen).


Last edited by LoudTechie on 22 January 2024 at 3:40 pm UTC

Capcom should have gone after the streamer instead of punishing paid consumers. Just shows how old fashioned and out of touch most Japanese businesses are.

We've been discussing this on the forum, and there are several other games known to be afflicted;

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection Vol. 1 & 2
Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
Strider
Resident Evil 5

Moreover, none of these are declared on their Steam pages, which I've seen suggested elsewhere might be in breach of the law in some regions. It annoyed me to learn of this second-hand, to be honest.

My response was to uninstall for the handful of Capcom titles I've got and also remove the Proton files (one of them being the Mega Man Zero/ZX compilation, which, as above, definitely has it), because clearly I can't trust any of them now. I presume that, since Proton is basically a container of sorts, I should have no issues as a result of this? (I've never encountered this before.)

Issues I can't predict, but Proton as a container is misleading.
Proton provides 0 containment on itself and is very clear about that.

They're designed to run in a layer of security called "user space" or as others call it ring 0.
It's the difference between root and everything else(on most systems).
Within this restricted space they're willing to let programs do and whatever they like.

They actively support some forms of debugger detection, file analysis, etc. specifically to support "copy protection".
There was an actual attempt for punk buster it failed, because of an issue even Windows had(Wine just had it a lot more extreme and since punk buster got fixed they already marked it as won't fix).
The reason why malware often fails is, because it wants to run in kernel space and Proton simply doesn't support kernel commands.
The only active protection it can offer is the extra protection flatpak offers compared to