After 10 years, a hacker managed to crack Denuvo in one of KONAMI's best games

The protection held out for a very long time, but a hacker managed to find a way to crack Pro Evolution Soccer 2017.

KONAMI’s football simulation franchise “PES” (or Pro Evolution Soccer) has evolved into eFootball. Currently, the developers are actively expanding the free-to-play project, but some fans still fondly remember PES games to this day.

Recently, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 was brought back into the spotlight. The reason was a statement by a hacker going by AOBA — he cracked Denuvo in this installment of the franchise, which was released back in 2016.

According to AOBA, this is “his first and probably last crack release,” and he is “unlikely to ever take on anything like this again.” Cracking Denuvo in this old game took him just three days.

He thanked other hacking groups and the well-known voices38 — they inspired him to crack the protection in Pro Evolution Soccer 2017. In his manifesto, he also voiced dissatisfaction with KONAMI's policy — accusing the developers of restricting modders' ability to explore eFootball game files. In addition, he called for the release of Coach Mode, which he has been eagerly awaiting for a long time.

In terms of Metacritic score, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 (released in 2016) is one of the best games in the franchise — holding 85 out of 100 points. For comparison, Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 scored 87 points, and Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 scored 83 points.