Yes for DRM
Yes for DRM
Posted Aug 7, 2025 23:26 UTC (Thu) by excors (subscriber, #95769)In reply to: Yes for DRM by comex
Parent article: Don't fear the TPM
Secure Boot for anti-cheat isn't new - Valorant has required it for at least 4 years (I think for all users on Win 11, and for some users on Win 10 after suspicious activity is detected (not suspicious enough to instantly ban them, but enough to enable tighter restrictions at the cost of excluding some suspicious-but-innocent players who don't have a TPM)). It appears to be a pretty successful anti-cheat system. There was a lot of noise about it being a "rootkit" when the game was released but that didn't stop the game becoming very popular.
And it's not alone: The Finals has required Secure Boot for 2 years; Fortnite has required it for high-level tournament matches since Feb this year; Battlefield 2042 has required it since May. Seems the only recent change is that since Win 10 is nearly end-of-life, some new games are only aiming to support Win 11 compatible hardware (which requires TPM) and are not providing exceptions for TPM-less Win 10 systems, which is what triggered the current fuss.