[UPDATE - March 3, 7:10 AM] With a new update, CAPCOM has removed the Enigma DRM from the Resident Evil 4 remake, restoring its performance to its pre-update state.
Original story follows.
While CAPCOM's RE Engine gathered a controversial reputation in the past few years due to the spotty performance of Monster Hunter Wilds and Dragon's Dogma 2, the game engine fares significantly better in more linear games. Among the games that does not suffer from any major performance issues caused by the engine itself is the Resident Evil 4 remake, but a recent update to the PC version has essentially put the game in a worse condition than it was at launch.
"Updating years old software with new DRM is stupid," noted Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia. The tech expert's analysis confirms that on a Ryzen 5 3600/RTX 4070 Super build, the introduction of the Enigma Protector DRM has gutted CPU game throughput by 40%. While the gap shrinks to 20% in the Village fight due to the AI powering the enemies, which introduces a different bottleneck, the impact remains constant in other scenarios.
This isn't an isolated incident for the Japanese publisher. CAPCOM has recently made similar moves with Resident Evil Revelations and Resident Evil 5, sparking a wave of anti-consumer backlash across the community. As YouTube user @chemeergency put it: "Retroactively implementing new DRM over old DRM is insanely anticonsumer." And it's not doing the publisher any favors, either, as some may be more inclined to go with the pirated version for better performance.
With Resident Evil Requiem on the horizon, some may wonder if the latest entry will be similarly impacted. However, the game is confirmed to use Denuvo on PC, complete with the standard five-activation limit. While Denuvo has its own issues, its impact on performance is lighter than Enigma Protector. Hopefully, CAPCOM will realize that protecting three-year-old games at the cost of the player experience is a losing battle by the time the ninth entry in the series requires a DRM update.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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