The Denuvo landscape didn’t stay quiet for long. Just as EMPRESS published her long “End of an Era” statement and stepped away from cracking, a new handle started appearing again and again in CrackWatch threads, repack notes and Reddit comments: voices38. In a short space of time, this previously unknown P2P cracker has gone from niche curiosity to one of the most talked‑about names in PC piracy circles, especially among people who still follow Denuvo‑protected releases.
While EMPRESS framed her exit as the end of a whole era, voices38 is doing almost the opposite: quietly working through old, stubborn Denuvo builds and showing that there is still interest – and skill – left in this space.
From low‑profile user to Denuvo specialist
Unlike classic “scene” groups with formal tags and rules, voices38 operates in the more informal P2P space and talks directly with players through Reddit. On his u/voices38 account he spends time answering technical questions, describing how newer Denuvo iterations tie licences to different hardware configurations, and why some people run into issues while others do not.
In several replies, he mentions setting up multiple test machines with different Intel and AMD CPUs, older pre‑2016 rigs and even dual‑boot systems just to reproduce specific activation and performance edge cases. He also says he is actively developing new tools for “post‑2020 Denuvo”, suggesting he is not just recycling older methods, but trying to keep up with the newer versions of the protection.
That mix of transparency and technical ambition is one of the reasons the name spread quickly across CrackWatch, FitGirl and Steam Deck communities.
Which Denuvo games has voices38 cracked so far?
Even in a relatively short window, the list of games tied to the ‑voices38 tag is already long and full of big publishers, especially EA.
Among the most talked‑about releases are:
- FIFA 20 – released under the label FIFA.20‑voices38 and described as the last title from the old 2019 “uncracked Denuvo list”. For many, this alone turned him from “new guy” into a serious name.
- FIFA 21 – another long‑requested sports title that had been abandoned by EA and pulled from sale. The FIFA.21‑voices38 crack quickly became a preservation talking point, since there is no longer a legal way to buy the game on PC.
- Need for Speed Heat – a popular racer where players had been waiting years for a working Denuvo crack.
- Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered – another EA title that received not only a crack, but a later crackfix aimed at improving stability on more systems.
- Total War: Three Kingdoms – a heavy strategy game from SEGA that had been sitting on uncracked lists for a long time.
- Star Wars: Squadrons – a Denuvo‑protected space combat game where his name shows up across CrackWatch, repacks and social media posts.
- Starlink: Battle for Atlas and Shining Resonance Refrain – older Denuvo titles that suddenly resurfaced in news reports and lists once his releases dropped.
- And, most recently, Hi‑Fi RUSH, released as Hi‑Fi.RUSH‑voices38 – a particularly interesting case because Denuvo had been removed by the publisher and replaced with a mix of VMProtect and their own virtualised DRM.
Taken together, that is a mix of sports games, racers, strategy titles and action games that had sat on “uncracked” lists for years. In particular, the late 2010s EA catalogue looked like it might stay locked forever; now it is turning into a showcase of what one determined person can do.
Going beyond Denuvo: VMProtect and publisher DRMs
What really made people sit up, though, was that voices38 did not stop at “traditional” Denuvo targets. When Tango Gameworks removed Denuvo from Hi‑Fi RUSH and swapped it for a combination of VMProtect plus their own virtualised DRM, he treated it as a bonus challenge rather than a reason to walk away.
In one of his comments about the release, he summed up the motivation with a simple line that has been quoted over and over:
“Thought it will be fun to crack VMProtect again plus publisher‑owned DRM virtualized inside VMProtect, that replaced Denuvo, as a small side quest.”
In other words, he is not only targeting Denuvo’s anti‑tamper layer, but also the alternative shields that some publishers drop in afterwards. That matters for preservation debates, because more studios are starting to swap Denuvo for custom online systems or virtualisation tools instead of just removing protection entirely.
Hi‑Fi RUSH being his most recent release underlines that point: once Denuvo was scheduled to be removed, he shifted his focus to the new protection stack instead of simply moving on to the next game.
The “voices38 quest” to clear old uncracked Denuvo
The community has already turned his work into a kind of running checklist. One popular post titled “All Uncracked Denuvo Games – The voices38 Quest” lists remaining games like Madden NFL 21, The Bus, F1 2021, Madden NFL 22, Lost in Random, FIFA 22 and others that still have no public crack.
In comment threads, voices38 himself pops up asking for updated lists, explaining how newer builds split hardware identifiers, and talking about the need to buy more parts to test different configurations. It is clear from the way he writes that he sees this as a long‑term project instead of something he will do for a couple of months and then drop.
His goal is not just to break one or two big new launches, but to slowly work through both older Denuvo titles from the 2019–2021 wave and modern versions with extra protection. That systematic approach is unusual in a space where many cracks appear once and are never touched again.
After Empress: can one person carry the Denuvo war?
All of this is happening just after EMPRESS published her retirement statement, citing health problems, burnout and frustration with the community after years fighting Denuvo more or less alone. It is no surprise that some threads now talk about voices38 as a “new hope” or half‑jokingly compare him to a calmer, more low‑profile successor.
Whether those comparisons are fair or not, the timing means every new ‑voices38 release gets measured against her back catalogue. The same hard questions, though, still hang over any solo cracker:
- How sustainable is it for one person to chase ever‑changing Denuvo builds, VMProtect layers and publisher‑specific DRMs?
- Will donations and community support be enough to justify the time, hardware and stress involved?
- And if he slows down or steps away later, does the whole “quest” stall again like it did when previous names disappeared?
EMPRESS’s exit exposed how fragile the scene becomes when so much progress depends on one or two individuals. Voices38’s rise proves there is still talent willing to take that role – but also highlights how quickly that momentum could vanish.
What this means for PC players watching Denuvo
For legitimate PC players, none of this changes the basic reality: games with Denuvo still depend on publisher decisions. Some studios keep it in place for years; others quietly remove it once sales slow down. Cracks might arrive months or years later – or never – regardless of how much noise there is on social media.
What voices38 does change is the mood around long‑standing “uncracked” lists. Titles like FIFA 20, FIFA 21 or older EA racers looked like permanent holdouts; now they are turning into case studies that even stubborn Denuvo implementations can eventually fall. His foray into VMProtect‑wrapped DRMs with Hi‑Fi RUSH shows that alternative protections are not automatically safe either.
Whether he becomes a long‑term fixture like Empress once was, or just a brief, intense chapter in Denuvo’s history, is impossible to know. For now, every time a new thread pops up with ‑voices38 in the title, it is a reminder that the technical tug‑of‑war between DRM developers and hobbyist crackers is very much alive – even in this supposed “post‑Empress” era.
