'Final Fantasy XV' PC news: PC release gets cracked four days ahead of arrival

Promotional image for "Final Fantasy XV" for the PCSteam

It seems video game pirates just can't wait for "Final Fantasy XV" to be finalized, as the PC version of the game has already been cracked, rendering it free for everyone to download and play on the PC before the actual release date.

This happened four days before the official release of "Final Fantasy XV" for PC on March 6 (7 for some countries) and could be quite a sharp blow to the initial sales of the game for the platform. The people responsible for "cracking" the game call themselves 3DM and are actually a Chinese hacker collective that has a long and successful track record of cracking a lot of AAA video game titles in the past.

3DM was able to tap into the executable file of the video game through the demo version, making it so that the version they cracked is actually the pre-release demo. It is not clear how much different this was from the release version and it ought to not have any day one updates and patches from the game. 3DM was also able to crack the game thanks to its lack of Denuvo anti-tamper and anti-piracy security software that can usually prevent cracking up until a few months because of its complex security algorithm.

This does not mean that Denuvo was not used for the game, in fact, it was announced just a few days ago that the PC version of the game will employ the said security software. How 3DM managed to get lucky and embarrassingly bypass the formidable Denuvo was thanks in part to Electronic Arts' Origin online game store which uploaded a complete version of the game locked as a free demo. Apparently, EA Origin's copy did not come preloaded with Denuvo, EA also does this often in order to let players who bought from them be able to play the game quickly.

So far, the cracked version of "Final Fantasy XV" on the PC seems to be working as well as the full game minus the online and multiplayer capabilities. EA has also not yet commented on the issue but will definitely address it in their future game versions for other titles in Origin.