There has been nothing but positive feedback for Sonic Mania and the developers who brought the 16-bit stylings of the blue hedgehog back to life for home consoles and PC… well, sort of. You see, the PC version of the game would have been lumped in with the console version when it comes to nothing but good vibes and positive feedback. However, Sega decided to dine at the devil’s table with none other than Denuvo, and that deal cost them a lot of good will. This rings especially true considering that the deed delivered included making Sonic Mania on PC hobbled with always-on DRM.
TechRaptor shuffled out the basics, including that the developers at PagodaWest Games were none too happy about Sega using their time in the kitchen to cook up the Sonic Mania masterpiece included sliding a knife from out of the cutlery and placing it firmly in the backs of PagodaWest, just like Burke attempting to screw over Ripley in Aliens.
And just like in Aliens how Burke found himself getting screwed over by the xenomorph, Sega now finds themselves getting screwed over by their own customers. Sega is being hammered with the ill-will of the community who absolutely abhors always-on DRM. Yes, the same always-on DRM that crippled the sales of the Xbox One back in 2013 in one of the biggest corporate blunders for a new product in recent history.
Anyway, Sega’s PR front man for the spike-heady blue hedgehog, Aaron Webber, took to Twitter to direct the traffic of digital rage away from the developers and Sonic Mania and toward the rightful targets of the untamed internet hate machine toward Sega’s customer support page.
In particular, please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you’re having at the link above. Make your voices heard.
— Aaron Webber (@RubyEclipse) August 29, 2017
Over on the Steam forum a rep for Sega notes that they are “investigating the possibility to play Sonic Mania on Steam offline, writing in a post…
“Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that.
We’re also investigating other issues like controller support, these are all PC specific things that Christian and the team have been working on these last few weeks”
Gamers, however, don’t schedule their entertainment free time around the whims and wiles of investors and shareholders who don’t even know the difference between DRM and B.M. So, wisely, some gamers have offered up some useful ways to circumvent Denuvo’s DRM until Sega removes it officially.
As noted on Techraptor, there are two guides available on how to bypass the DRM, one from shicky256, which is below…
“1. Make a copy of SonicMania.exe
2. Open SonicMania.exe in a hex editor
3. Go to 1CAABE
4. Overwrite the byte with: EBBefore change: 75 30
After change: EB 30”
And the other is from SenMithrarin85…
“1) download hxd and install it
2) make a copy of the game’s exe
3) open hxd and then click file>open
4) open the sonicmania.exe
5) press ctrl+g in the box that appears, type 1CAABE and then press enter
6) the program will navigate to 2 values before a 30
7) Do not move the cursor. Type EB
8) it should read EB 30
9) press ctrl+s and close the program
10) replace the game’s exe witht he edited one
11) play offline!”
Sonic Mania is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch. If you don’t feel like opening up a bunch of programs and diddling your fingers around in hex code like a child twirls the little ‘O’s in Spaghetti-Os, then I would soundly suggest getting the Nintendo Switch version since it’s about as an authentic experience as you can get next to playing on a 16-bit home console.
