Sega’s critically acclaimed Sonic Mania witnessed its fair share of annoyance when it was revealed that it used Denuvo, a form of DRM technology, on PC. Not only was it not mentioned on the game’s Steam page but the game was unplayable offline as a result.
Sega issued statement on the Steam page not mentioning that Sonic Mania had DRM and noted that it was in the process of fixing it (which it’s since done). It also noted that, “Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that.
“We’re also investigating other issues like controller support; these are all PC specific things that Christian [Whitehead, Mania’s project lead] and the team have been working on these last few weeks. Please bear with us while we collate and investigate problems that are being brought to our attention.”
The Twitter for Sega Europe has since revealed that playing offline is now possible but Denuvo won’t be removed any time soon which seems to be a bigger issue for many fans. Denuvo has been the go to DRM solution for many triple-A games in the past few years including DOOM and the upcoming Life is Strange: Before The Storm. How this will impact PC sales for Sonic Mania remains to be seen.