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Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection to have Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM

Capcom has just updated the Steam pages for Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. The change adds a small, but significant note: the Legacy Collection will incorporate Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM when it launches on Steam in 2023.

Previous Mega Man Legacy Collections only had standard Steam DRM, so this makes it the first Mega Man collection on the platform to incorporate Denuvo, and the second Mega Man game after Mega Man 11. Perhaps Capcom has high expectations for this one?

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper
5 different PC within a day machine activation limit

Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 Steam pages

As part of Denuvo, the Battle Network Legacy Collection limits you to installing the game on a maximum of 5 different PCs per 24 hour period. However, this count resets daily, so it shouldn’t affect most players.

In the past, inclusion of Denuvo (or any DRM, for that matter) has often been controversial due to claims it negatively affects performance. Though, seeing as these are just ports of GBA games, it doesn’t seem very likely that Denuvo will have a big impact in this case. But this is something we won’t know for sure until the game launches.

Typically, third-party DRM like Denuvo is used to protect a game against piracy during the ever-crucial initial sales period, as this is usually when piracy has the biggest impact on sales. It’s common for publishers to remove Denuvo DRM from a game after initial sales die down. Capcom itself has also done so in the past, issuing updates that remove Denuvo for various Monster Hunter and Resident Evil games. Usually this is about 6-12 months after release.

Source: SteamDB (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that MMBNLC was the first Mega Man game on Steam with Denuvo. However, Mega Man 11 also had Denuvo DRM at launch (which was later removed).