Assassin’s Creed: Origins DRM Reportedly Crippling PCs

Anti-piracy measures have been the bane of PC gamers’ existence since it was introduced, which recently culminated in PCs getting crippled. The DRM in Assassin’s Creed: Origins is reportedly causing CPUs to overload, which is supposedly because the game employs two of them. It seems Ubisoft’s overzealous attitude towards preventing piracy is actually making the game’s PC version unplayable.

Reports of excessive CPU use when playing Origins have been circulating the web since the game’s launch. Once video game pirates took a look at the problem, it was apparently due to the presence of both Denuvo and another DRM called VMProtect, Tech Radar reports.

For those who have been following along the developments in the gaming industry, it’s been widely known that Denuvo is no longer the reliable anti-piracy service that it once was. In most recent games, the DRM can be cracked hours after launch or before the game even comes out.

This goes a long way towards explaining why Ubisoft may have wanted extra protection with its game, which is where VMProtect comes in. Having two DRMs to contend with in one game is undoubtedly going to make the lives of pirates a lot harder, but it’s also causing legitimate gamers trouble.

Gamers are also noting that the kind of GPU being used does not seem to matter, The Inquirer reports. The game will still use up as much as 100 percent of CPU processes, overloading every core.

Gamers can suffer a variety of effects, ranging from stuttering even with the lowest graphical setting, to crashes. All in all, the verdict that most gamers are coming to is that the DRM on Origins is only making the lives of honest gamers who paid for their copy of the game miserable. In contrast, pirates only really need to wait for the game to be cracked and play it as they want.