Tekken 8 won’t have Denuvo, according to Katsuhiro Harada

The highly anticipated Tekken 8 recently caused a stir among fans when they noticed that the End User License Agreement on Steam made mention of the controversial anti-tamper software Denuvo. Fortunately, game director Katsuhiro Harada took to Twitter to announce he has “no plans to introduce Denuvo or anything else.”

this EULA is probably simply a copy/paste of TEKKEN7 or something (I'm not a registered this but sure).
Anyway, I’ve no plans to introduce Denuvo or anything else in TEKKEN8, so stop your tedious allergic reactions to every single thing & sit quietly (sit the hell down). https://t.co/oT1Wj9VTpd

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) August 7, 2023

According to Harada, the mention of Denuvo is likely because the EULA is a copy of Tekken 7’s. Although Harada’s Tweet isn’t a definitive confirmation that Tekken 8 won’t use the anti-tamper software, it is a good sign.

Tekken 8 could avoid some of Tekken 7’s problems

Developers use Denuvo to prevent (or at least stall) games from being cracked and pirated. Ideally, it shouldn’t affect gameplay. Nevertheless, both players and developers have previously complained about the anti-tamper software, with some developers eventually removing it from their games. Denuvo has acknowledged the negative press, though the issues surrounding it continue.

Tekken 7 was well recieved when it released in 2015. However, it did suffer from frame rate drops and other performance issues on PC. Harada attributed this to the game’s anti-tamper software, which happened to be Denuvo. This naturally explains why fans felt upset about the mention of Denuvo in Tekken 8‘s EULA, and why Harada is so adamant on avoiding it.

Anti-tamper 3rd party middleware. It’s live updating programs and I heard “it’s fix soon” from them. We will check it and update.
Thx
RT @TiredOcean: What does the encryption program do?

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) April 13, 2018

Though Harada has suggested players “sit quietly”, impatient fans have been exploiting the Closed Network Test to play beyond the test period. Tekken 8 will release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, though it has yet to receive a release date.