Resident Evil Requiem, which is currently Capcom's blockbuster survival horror game that was released on February 27, 2026, is back in the headlines for two major reasons happening simultaneously. Modding and data-mining community member "MasyaSYRKOV" posted explosive findings on Twitter on April 17, 2026, revealing ten previously unknown, unreleased music tracks hidden inside Resident Evil Requiem's game files.
After this reveal, fans are now convinced that the mysterious "mini-game" update that Capcom confirmed for May 2026 is almost certainly the legendary "Mercenaries Mode," which is a beloved, fan-favorite game mode that has been part of the Resident Evil series for decades.
The dataminer shared the audio snippets directly on social media, writing: "I was digging through Resident Evil Requiem files and found something that could be related to future extra mode / Mercenaries." The post went viral almost immediately. The tracks are not tied to any existing area or cutscene in the game's main campaign. Instead, they carry a distinctly different sonic identity — fast-paced, tense, and saturated with urgency.
Most importantly, Tracks 3 and 4 prominently feature ticking clock sounds, which is one of the most iconic signature elements of the Mercenaries gameplay loop, where players must eliminate enemies against a racing timer to rack up the highest possible score. Alongside the Mercenaries Mode datamine leak, Resident Evil Requiem's Denuvo anti-tamper DRM protection has been fully and cleanly cracked.
Resident Evil Requiem became the first major 2026 game to have its Denuvo anti-tamper DRM completely stripped, approximately 40 days after its February 27 launch. The crack was announced on Reddit by user "voices38," who is a well-known figure in the PC piracy scene who had previously performed the same feat on Doom: The Dark Ages, which was the first 2025 Denuvo game to be fully cracked, just weeks earlier.
How This Was Happened?
Unlike early bypasses that relied on a hypervisor-based workaround (which is a newer technique that had become widespread enough that Denuvo's parent company "Irdeto" began developing countermeasures), voices38 used a clean, traditional old-school approach for fully stripping all Denuvo code from the game's executable without any workarounds or additional system requirements.
The resulting release, labeled Resident.Evil.Requiem-voices38, is a 74.4 GB download that has been spreading through peer-to-peer networks. Voices38 stated on Reddit that the 2026 version of Denuvo DRM only introduced two new features compared to the 2025 edition used in Doom: The Dark Ages, making it, while harder to crack, still far from impenetrable.
When asked whether future 2025 and 2026 Denuvo titles could similarly be cracked, voices38 replied simply: "All can be cracked." Performance tests published alongside the crack revealed a notable finding: removing Denuvo DRM improved CPU performance and frametime consistency on the cracked version versus the legitimate retail release.
Benchmark testing on an Intel Core i9-13900K paired with an RTX 3090 showed measurably fewer CPU usage spikes and lower frametimes, resulting in smoother overall gameplay. One tester observed an average gap of approximately 11 FPS between the properly cracked release and the hypervisor-based version. Players on older or less powerful hardware could potentially see even greater gains from Denuvo removal.
Capcom's Response:
As for Capcom's official response, the Japanese publisher has remained silent on the crack. Capcom has not issued any public statement addressing the Denuvo bypass. However, industry analysts note that Capcom's financial exposure is likely minimal. Requiem had already sold five million copies in its first five days and over six million by mid-March, generating enormous revenue well before the crack became widely available.
The game peaked at roughly 330,000 concurrent players on Steam, exceeding the Resident Evil 4 Remake's launch numbers, which suggests the crack had little measurable impact on commercial performance. Capcom, which now generates approximately 50% of its total game sales on PC, appears to have secured its critical early sales window before the DRM was breached.
Questions:
- What are your thoughts regarding the recent incidents in RE9?
- Does knowing these leaks early make you more excited for the update, or do you feel the surprise has been ruined?
- Does Denuvo being cracked this fast change your mind about buying games at launch?
Let me know in the comments, where you can also provide the latest news so I can make a breakdown of it.