Last July, the Resident Evil 2 remake was made available for pre-order through Steam, and with the Steam listing it was confirmed that the game would indeed use the Denuvo anti-tamper system. While this anti-tamper technology has been in place since the Resident Evil 2 release date in January, an apparent mistake on the part of Capcom has put a DRM-free executable of the survival horror title out into the world.

Discovered earlier this week, the Resident Evil 2 DRM-free executable was briefly downloadable through Steam. This version of Resident Evil 2 with Denuvo removed has an executable sized at around 170MB, a notable decrease when compared to the 362MB size of the Denuvo-enabled executable.

While Capcom was quick to address this mistake, promptly returning Denuvo to the game on Steam, it was not done before players had a chance to copy the Resident Evil 2 DRM-free executable. This has given interested players further chance to try the Resident Evil 2 PC version without Denuvo running in the background. Certainly, a number of players will be interested in doing just that.

This interest comes, in part, from the sentiment that Denuvo anti-tamper technology has an adverse effect on a game's overall performance. This performance degradation may mean increases in load times and decreases in FPS, and this Denuvo-free Resident Evil 2 executable will offer players the opportunity to see exactly how DRM technology is altering the experience.

resident evil 2 drm free

Notably, this is not the first time that Capcom has accidentally released a DRM-free version of one of its games. In fact, just months ago, Devil May Cry 5 without Denuvo was discovered on Steam, and reports suggested that this DRM-less executable brought a significant FPS boost along with it.

To further mention, Capcom has previously removed Denuvo anti-tamper technology from Resident Evil 7, the entry in the series that released immediately prior to the Resident Evil 2 remake. As such, it is possible that a version of Resident Evil 2 without DRM will be made officially available at some point in the future. Until then though, some players are certain to be making use of the executable that was mistakenly released earlier this week.

Resident Evil 2 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Dark Side of Gaming, Reddit