Indiana Jones and the Great Circle won't include Denuvo DRM, Bethesda confirms

Many major AAA game releases on PC nowadays tend to ship with the Denuvo digital rights management (DRM) solution. Despite its unpopularity in some gaming circles, the anti-piracy measure has proven to be effective in stopping piracy in most games it's implemented in, especially in recent years. However, Bethesda is looking to skip it in its upcoming release.

Replying to a report that claimed Denuvo had been added to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at the last minute for the Steam version, the official social media account of Bethesda confirmed that the game will not in fact ship with the DRM solution.

The original report came through from users looking at the latest internal changes hitting the game on Steam, via SteamDB, which showed Denuvo DRM as a silent addition. However, this had just been for the review copies that were going out, per the company.

"Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does not include Denuvo," writes Bethesda. "It was only in review builds for leak precautions."

This makes the MachineGames-developed title the latest high-profile release to ditch Denuvo DRM system. In 2024 alone, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Homeworld 3 and others have removed the solution in post-launch updates, possibly after their contract periods have ended. Moreover, BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 both launch without Denuvo DRM.

Indiana Jones and the great circle

Despite its success in stopping piracy, one of the major counterpoints being raised for the integration of Denuvo in games are the reports of performance issues and stutters it can add. Some implementations of the protective measure in games have shown hits to frame rates and smoothness.

The game will want all the performance it can get from PC players' hardware too. Its eyewatering system requirements released just yesterday, which wants ray-tracing capable hardware across all its tiers.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches across Xbox Series X|S and PC on December 9. An Xbox Game Pass drop is happening on the same day for subscribers.