Source: DRM Not Behind Sonic Mania PC Delay

From the moment Sonic Mania‘s delay on Steam was announced only days ahead of its scheduled August 15th launch to the unexpected surprise discovery of Denuvo upon its launch Tuesday, much of the community has speculated whether the extra two weeks was taken to implement the controversial digital rights management technology, as console editions won critical acclaim and near universal recommendation.

But a source with some knowledge of the process tells TSSZ that was not the case; that DRM had no bearing on Sonic Mania’s PC delay.

The source also suggested no big deal was made within Sega about Denuvo’s inclusion with Mania. It is the latest in a small series of Sega titles to have the technology included. Two other Warhammer branded titles, as well as Football Manager 17, Sega’s major PC property out of Europe, also includes Denuvo. All three mentioned titles have had the encryption technology cracked.

The source did not say whether developers Christian ‘Taxman’ Whitehead, Simon ‘Stealth’ Thomley, or PagodaWest Games had advance knowledge of Sega’s plans with Denuvo.

This comes as Sega Europe released a short Tweet claiming the offline play prohibition–called an “error” yesterday by the company–has been fixed:

https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/902901749828255748

Still, many players report problems playing offline, and some still can’t launch the game due to Denuvo on account of it being flagged by antivirus software.

Currently, almost 30 percent of Mania’s reviews on Steam are negative, and nearly all of them cite Denuvo as a reason. That puts its user rating at almost 70 percent–well below the mid 80s average Metacritic score.