MKDEV cracks Denuvo in Persona 5 Royal: Group claims hypervisor is key to cracking Denuvo on release day

 

As it became known, today the MKDEV group released a beta version of the Denuvo protection hack for Persona 5 Royal

The PC version was released in 2022 and remained uncracked for a long time.

MKDEV's last Denuvo hack so far was FIFA 23.

The group hacked it in 2023, after which they decided to retire and even shared some tips for aspiring Denuvo hackers. In their NFO, MKDEV clarified that this hack was a one-off and they don't plan to hack other Denuvo games. How long it will take to finalize the Persona 5 Royal hack is currently unknown.

Along with the hack, the group also presented sample code for hacking Denuvo using a hypervisor. MKDEV claims that the hypervisor allows for bypassing numerous complex Denuvo checks, saving attackers a ton of routine work—they only need to modify the hack and some checks. However, due to the specific nature of the hypervisor, Denuvo will not be able to block this hacking method.

MKDEV believes that the hypervisor will allow pirates to crack Denuvo games on release day in the future. Hopefully, other crackers will study MKDEV's hypervisor solution and use it in the future.

Update:

MKDEV has released update 1.2 for the hack, which fixes a possible crash during the opening cutscene. Overall, users report that the hack is stable and already works without any major issues, but it likely still needs some tweaking—the beta test is ongoing.