Rise of the Tomb Raider [official site] might finally be cracked six months after its release. A step-by-step video showing a cracked copy of Rise of the Tomb Raider surfaced in Russia last week. It raises the question of whether or not pirates will finally be able to defeat Denuvo’s DRM security – protection so tough that some crackers said they were giving up. The crack has yet to be replicated, though, and it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

Denuvo say they can’t verify if the crack is real as there are no available to test, but they don’t seem to be too stressed about the whole ordeal. The DRM company told Eurogamer “only public available cracks are relevant as they harm the content owners business.” In fact, they seem to be perfectly satisfied with Rise of the Tomb Raider’s protection.

“The general positioning of our product is ‘hard to crack’ and not ‘uncrackable’. For us it is important to secure the initial sales window of games, which worked out well on all the recent titles,” they confidently pointed out to PCGamesN.

It’s doubtful that this marks the end of Denuvo’s impressive record against PC gaming piracy. Where games were once cracked sometimes weeks before they were released, big titles like Just Cause 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition have gone months post-launch without a pirated version. Pirates will always be out there on the high seas of the interwebs doing their thing, but they’re still struggling with breaking down Denuvo’s defenses. It’s possible they could find a more efficient solution in the future, yet it’s likely Denuvo is preparing for that reality. The technology is designed to evolve alongside any new methods devised to break through the DRM.