Last week, Doom Eternal received its first post-release update, which included the addition of Denuvo Anti-Cheat, which is designed to prevent cheating in online games, not piracy.

Spurred on by the blowback, executive producer Marty Stratton announced today on Reddit that id Software will remove the anti-cheat software in the next update for the PC version of Doom Eternal.

"Despite our best intentions, player feedback has made it clear that we must re-evaluate our approach to anti-cheat integration. 'Accordingly, we will be removing the anti-cheat technology from the game in the next PC update.'

"When considering the future of anti-cheat in DOOM Eternal, we need to consider, at a minimum, allowing campaign-only players to play without installing anti-cheat software, as well as the overall integration of timing should be more in line with player expectations regarding distinct initiatives such as ranked and competitive play, where the demand for anti-cheat is much greater.

Stratton said that the decision to add Denuvo Anti-Cheat was entirely made by id, and that speculation that its parent company, Bethesda, forced the issue is "simply not true." He also emphasized that the removal of the Denuvo anti-cheat does not reflect a problem with Denuvo, and said that the performance and stability issues that appeared after the release of the update were irrelevant.

"Through our investigation, we discovered and fixed several code crashes related to customizable skins. We were also able to identify and fix some memory related crashes that improved overall stability for players. All of these fixes will be included in the next PC update," he wrote.

The PC performance issue was "based on a code change we made regarding VRAM allocation," he added, and will be reversed in the next update.

No date has been set for the rollout of the next Doom Eternal PC update, but Stratton said id hopes to release it within a week.