Assassin's Creed Mirage sneaks in unpopular anti-piracy software hours before launch

Assassin's Creed Mirage added a deeply unpopular anti-piracy feature just hours before launch, and well after reviews had gone live.

A new post on Reddit called attention to the update yesterday, October 4, hours before Assassin's Creed Mirage launched around the world earlier today on October 5. It's the latest patch which apparently smuggled in the unpopular Denuvo anti-piracy software, which should be patch 1.0.2, acting as the day one patch for Mirage on all platforms.

#Ubisoft just added Denuvo to #AssassinsCreedMirage via a day-1 patch a few minutes ago. AFTER all the major reviews went online. Sincerely: Fuck off. from r/Games

It's worth pointing out that we've known Assassin's Creed Mirage would have Denuvo at launch since earlier this year, around July. Ubisoft might have announced the feature beforehand, but what players on the subreddit above aren't happy about is the fact that Mirage reviewers played and reviewed the new game without experiencing Denuvo.

"The review copies didn't have it which is shitty. If you are going to force DRM for a product, reviews copies should also have this," writes one popular comment underneath the Reddit post above. "Literally messes with performance and some reviews for PC were already complaining about hitching before Denuvo. Really scumbag move," another chimes in.

Denuvo is a black sheep among PC gamers because it apparently downgrades performance via its tampering effects. There have been cases in the past with noticeable frame rate drops and stuttering issues for games that were under the influence of Denuvo, which exists solely as an anti-piracy initiative.

Mirage PC players are understandably concerned that what they're now playing might not truly stack up against the experience PC reviewers were having before launch. If you're going to put $50 or $60 of your hard-earned money down for a game that a reviewer says runs fine on PC, you don't then want to experience a litany of visual bugs and errors because a publisher gave you a different product.

Our own Assassin's Creed Mirage review thankfully wasn't conducted on a PC, and we gave it a glowing four out of five stars.

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.