Capcom adds Enigma DRM to Monster Hunter Rise

The recent fuss over Capcom adding a little-known DRM to its older back-catalog of games seemed to have gone away, bit is now set to rear its head again if reports of the Enigma Protector being pushed to Monster Hunter Rise in its latest update are true.

Enigma Protector had been causing all sorts of issues including stuttering and frame rate drops when it appeared in Resident Evil Revelations recently, so much so that Capcom withdrew the update, apologized, and then didn’t promise it wouldn’t do it again.

Now coders have looked into what the latest Monster Hunter Rise update actually contained, and a telling screenshot in the coded HEX clearly shows the words Enigma Protector, suggesting, at least if this unverified image is true, that Capcom is still deploying the Enigma Protector into its older games.

Yep, Monster Hunter Rise update added enigma pic.twitter.com/UwcC6Q1101

— DakaR:FT (@DakaRFT) January 22, 2024

Capcom has long been against any kind of modding of its titles and firmly believes the PC is a haven for game piracy but its choice of Enigma Protector has been heavily questioned by the coming community.

PC gamers are inherently suspicious of DRM by nature and point to the fact that it should not be a better gaming experience playing a pirated copy than one you have legitimately purchased. Whatever the authenticity of Enigma Protector, this debacle has given the Japanese gaming giant a PR headache

The description on the Enigma Protector website meanwhile describes the software as the following:

“The Enigma Protector includes a wide range of unique features aimed at protecting executable files from illegal copying, hacking, modification, and analysis. The Enigma Protector will make your software resistant to cracking, and thus will increase your sales. The use of attack-proof crypto algorithms for registration key generation will make it impossible for others to reconstruct or reproduce the registration key generator for your software. Various methods of code obfuscation, mutation, and virtualization will help protect your application from hacking, modifying, disassembling, illegal retrieval of unique functions and data, etc.”

It seems Capcom is determined to deploy Engima, regardless of what players think.

Paul McNally

Gaming Editor

Paul McNally has been around consoles and computers since his parents bought him a Mattel Intellivision in 1980. He has been a prominent games journalist since the 1990s, spending over a decade as editor of popular print-based video games and computer magazines, including a market-leading PlayStation title published by IDG Media.

Having spent time as Head of Communications at a professional sports club and working for high-profile charities such as the National Literacy Trust, he returned as Managing Editor in charge of large US-based technology websites in 2020.

Paul has written high-end gaming content for GamePro, Official Australian PlayStation Magazine, PlayStation Pro, Amiga Action, Mega Action, ST Action, GQ, Loaded, and the The Mirror. He has also hosted panels at retro-gaming conventions and can regularly be found guesting on gaming podcasts and Twitch shows. He is obsessed with 3D printing and has worked with several major brands in the past to create content

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