Sonic Mania is currently the talk of the town simply because it’s the first good Sonic the Hedgehog game to release in nearly six years, but all is not right for the PC version of the game. Players have discovered that it can only be played online due to copy-protection software.
The program in question is Denuvo, as Ars Technica’s Sam Machkovech discovered on Tuesday, August 29. Designed to stop piracy, it doesn’t allow Sonic Mania players to play the game if their internet goes down, even if they have booted up Steam in its offline mode. This doesn’t appear to be the intended function of the software, as the game’s Steam page posted an update stating that “Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline” and the developers were looking into the issue.
These problems aside, Sonic Mania has received a rave reception from longtime fans looking for a more traditional platforming experience. Combining stages from the original games with brand-new creations, it’s the closest thing players have seen to a retro Sonic title since Sonic & Knuckles, and it gives us some cautious optimism for the series’ future. The next game in the series, Sonic Forces, blends elements of 2D and 3D action together in a similar manner to Sonic Generations. It also allows fans to live out their DeviantArt fantasies and create their own custom Sonic characters. Just don’t create Coldsteel the Hedgehog, as your game console will immediately explode in a fit of rage.
Denuvo began as a relatively robust digital rights management tool, but it has been less effective recently. Adventure game Rime released earlier this year on PC in addition to consoles, and it took just five days for someone to figure out a way to remove Denuvo from the game. Players also alleged that it was actually affecting loading times in the game. Resident Evil 7 was cracked in a similar amount of time, though Denuvo says that even just this five-day window makes a difference in sales for publishers, as eager players can’t wait to pirate games.
Sonic Mania is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.