Empress (sometimes stylized EMPRESS) is a video game cracker who specializes in breaking anti-piracy software. While the identity of Empress is unknown, she refers to herself as a woman and Russian.[1][2] Empress has also released cracked games under the moniker C000005.[3]

Empress is known as one of the few crackers who can crack Denuvo. Also according to her statement, she was the one who cracked for Codex all of their releases of Denuvo-protected games. Her motivation is to remove the software license aspect of digital games in an effort to preserve them after developers drop support.[1] Empress also claims that removing digital rights management (DRM) decreases performance issues in a game.[4]

Career

Empress became interested in the DRM-cracking scene in 2014.[1] Her followers can participate in polls to select which game they want cracked next, and her work is funded through crowdsourced donations.[1] Empress uses the money to cover the living costs, upgrade hardware, and purchase games that they intend to crack. She acknowledges that accepting payment for piracy is against the etiquette of the warez scene.[3]

Empress rose to prominence after releasing a cracked version of Red Dead Redemption 2.[5] Other high-profile games cracked by Empress include Mortal Kombat 11 and Anno 1800.[1] In February 2021, Empress stated that she would soon be arrested after being allegedly caught red handed working on the crack for Immortals Fenyx Rising. Empress blamed FitGirl Repacks, with whom she had a feud.[6] However, that March, Empress was available to publish a workaround for the online check-in system of Battle.net.[7] Empress's arrest announcement was met with general skepticism by the cracking community.[8]

In 2023, Empress was banned from Reddit by reddit admins. She released a cracked version of Hogwarts Legacy that February.[9]

Controversies

Empress is known around the P2P scene for the "personal note" section in the NFOs of her releases, often containing a variety of slurs and other offensive language. The information file supplied with the cracked version of Hogwarts Legacy expressed dissatisfaction with what was described as the "woke system" of today.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 D'Anastasio, Cecilia (22 February 2021). "The Woman Bulldozing Video Games' Toughest DRM". Wired. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  2. ↑ "THE TOP TIER CONTRADICTION & HYPOCRISY OF THE HUMAN RACE". /r/EmpressEvolution. Reddit. Archived from the original on 21 February 2023. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
  3. 1 2 Maxwell, Andy (26 September 2020). "Games Cracker 'EMPRESS' Wants to Crowdfund Denuvo Cracks". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  4. ↑ Macgregor, Jody (12 July 2021). "Pirates claim Resident Evil 8 crack fixes performance problems". PC Gamer. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  5. ↑ Besharaty, Mark B. (21 February 2023). "Hacker Empress Set to Release Highly Anticipated Hogwarts Legacy Empress Crack". Gamelevate. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  6. ↑ Maxwell, Andy (24 February 2021). "Denuvo Cracker EMPRESS "Arrested", Blames Repacker FitGirl & Reddit For Witch-Hunt". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  7. ↑ Machkovech, Sam (28 March 2021). "Activision releases online-only PC game without online content, cracked in one day". Ars Technica. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  8. ↑ Swiatek, Bart (25 February 2021). "Empress Arrested for Cracking Denuvo?". Gamepressure. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
  9. 1 2 Maruccia, Alfonso (24 February 2023). "Notorious game cracker has removed Denuvo from Hogwarts Legacy after just two weeks". TechSpot. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
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