Sega Lets Sonic Mania PC Fans Play Offline After DRM Backlash

Sonic Mania released on PC yesterday, bringing its colourful levels to even more players. However, many of them were inconvenienced by protection software that prevented them from playing offline. Sega has responded to concerns and fixed the issue following outcry from players.

Denuvo is a digital rights management program meant to prevent players from sharing the same copy of a game to multiple computers. As part of the protection process, Denuvo performs multiple “checks” throughout gameplay to ensure the game’s copy is legitimate. While this protection has been cracked on multiple games with increasing frequency, Sonic Mania‘s use of Denuvo stopped players from enjoying the game while their computer or Steam client was offline. Users took to the game’s review page in droves to voice their anger.

“Treating legitimate customers like pirates isn’t cool,” one reviewer said. Among concerns regarding offline play, many players are upset that the game’s use of DRM was never communicated beforehand.

“I feel violated because Sega did not say it was going to have Denuvo,” another reviewer said. “Now we know why it was delayed for two weeks.”

Faster than Sonic rushing through Chemical Plant Zone, Sega responded to say that the issue has now been resolved. The announcement came via Sega’s European Twitter account:

The #sonicmaniapc offline play bug has now been patched. Thanks for your patience and let us know if you experience any further problems.

— SEGA Europe (@SEGA_Europe) August 30, 2017

Responding to player concerns, Sega posted an update to the game’s Steam page stating that they are investigating cases where players are unable to enjoy the game offline. They also stated that they also intend to look into issues with controller support.

“Like you, we’ve noticed an error in the Steam store not mentioning the DRM for Sonic Mania,” the statement said. ” We’re fixing that now. Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that.”