Anti-cheat provider Denuvo joins the official PS5 partner program

(Image credit: Sony PlayStation)

Sony has partnered with anti-piracy software provider Denuvo to offer anti-cheat solutions to PS5 developers.

In an announcement today, Denuvo parent company Irdeto stated that it had "joined the exclusive PlayStation 5 Tools and Middleware program," offering its anti-cheat tech to publishers and developers creating games for the console.

In this instance, however, the service's anti-cheat technology will be used instead. Denuvo claims that its software will "secure both online gameplay as well as securely reward offline progress," and "help game developers protect sensitive game logic or data, preventing cheaters from changing sensitive variables."

This isn't the first time that Denuvo has worked with Sony, as "a number of games incorporated Denuvo's anti-cheat at launch of PlayStation 5." The introduction into the Tools and Middleware program, however, will make it easier for a wider number of console devs to incorporate the anti-cheat tools on PlayStation, should they want to.

Piracy and cheating generally aren't as significant an issue on console as they are on PC, leading some commenters on Resetera to question why Sony would need to partner with Denuvo. As pointed out by Digital Foundry's Alexander Battaglia, however, with Sony looking to increase the amount of PlayStation games releasing on PC over the next few years, the company could be in greater need of protection for players.

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I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.