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It’s a common misconception that all games purchased through Steam have DRM (Digital Rights Management) enabled by the very nature of being on Steam, but that’s not the case. Here’s why and how to tell if your game is DRM-free.
Why don’t all Steam games have DRM?
If you were under the impression that all games purchased from Steam are DRM enabled and the Steam launcher is required to play them, that’s perfectly understandable.
You can add your spouse, child, roommate, or whoever to your Steam library to share games within your household, but Steam shares the entire library at once, not individual games. That means if you want to play game x in your library while your child plays game and, it does not work even if you are not playing the same game at the same time. While we understand their logic (they try to prevent someone from sharing a library of 1000+ games among a group of friends and the lost sales that would result from that), it’s frustrating when you only want to share the games you paid for with your child. at the end of the hall.
If you know that a particular game is DRM-free and can be launched without the Steam launcher, then you know that game will always be available, even if someone in the household is using the Steam family library.
It’s easier to archive games without DRM
We don’t know about you, but nuance of game licensing and DRM aside, our attitude is “I paid for this game and therefore I own this game.” While the chances of Steam shutting down the store and leaving literally millions of players without resources are very, very slim, we’ve also been burned by DRM too many times over the years not to think about that possibility.
If a game in your library is DRM-free to begin with, that makes it very simple to back up the game and keep a copy that will work no matter what happens with Steam.
Whatever your reason for wanting to check if a game is DRM-free, however, it’s easy to do.
How to tell if your Steam game is DRM-free
Curious to know if a particular game is DRM-free? Here’s how to find out. Let’s start with the most obvious ways to remove DRM from games, and then dive into the finer details.
And if you’re not interested in playing DRM detective, don’t worry, after showing you how to check it yourself, we’ll highlight some great lists you can check to skip the whole field test experience.
Check the game’s Steam page
It’s elementary but it’s the fastest way to dismiss a game. Games that use third-party DRM are marked as such on their Steam listing page. In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that the Bethesda game deadly loop uses Denuvo’s anti-tampering DRM (an always-on DRM that requires you to be online even if you’re playing single player).
Note, however, that checking the Steam page for a game is only meant to rule out big DRM systems. Just because you don’t see a notice that the game is using Denuvo, UPlay, or any of the common DRM systems doesn’t mean it’s greenlit.
Install the game and then run it without Steam
First of all, you will need Steam to get the game files, but once you have them, whether or not you need Steam is up to the publisher.
With that in mind, an easy test is to simply load Steam, install the game, close Steam, and then temporarily rename the Steam root directory and the steam.exe . So during the test your /Steam/ the folder will be renamed to, say, /Steam-Old/ and you steam.exe the file inside that folder will be renamed to steam.old —This is to ensure that if the game searches for Steam, it can’t find it.
Then locate the actual executable file of the game and try to launch it without Steam. If it works, great, you have a DRM-free game on your hands. If not, don’t give up just yet.
Some games have a steam_api.dll me SteamworksNative.dll in the root directory of the game along with the game executable. Try changing the file extension from .dll a .old , temporarily, to run the game. If that works, you can leave the file as .old .
Changing the Steam executable and directory is a bit of a hassle, albeit a minor one, so we recommend testing several of your games at once to save time.
Add an ID text file to the game directory
Some games are DRM-free, but require a simple text file in the game’s application directory to launch without the Steam launcher present.
You can test to see if your game is such a game by putting a file called steam_appid.txt , in the game directory with the game’s actual Steam database ID number as the only content of the text file. The game a short walk is an example of a game that requires this text file.
The easiest way to get the ID is to simply visit the game’s Steam page and look at the URL. The full URL of a short walk it is https://store.steampowered.com/app/1055540/A_Short_Hike/ —The number between the /app/ and the title of the game is the ID.
so to run a short walk without Steam, it would create a text file in the directory titled steam_appid.txt with only the text “1055540” inside.
Additional methods
Beyond these simple and risk-free methods, there are ways to run games purchased through Steam without Steam. However, these methods require patching the game in some way, from altering existing executables to replacing executables or other files with “padding” files from other versions of the game.
For example, a game could be sold on Steam with DRM but sold elsewhere without DRM, so in theory you could swap in all the relevant files and your version purchased on Steam would now be DRM-free.
However, that is beyond the scope of this article and introduces a not insignificant risk that any replacement files you purchase may be compromised and harmful to your computer. We cannot, in good faith, recommend it, and instead would recommend that if DRM of any kind is such a big deal to you, you should buy games that come without DRM, such as those sold by Good Old Games.
Helpful DRM-Free Steam Game Lists
It may take a bit of time to play through all your games to test their DRM and launcher status, so we fully understand if you want to skip the investigation.
Fortunately for you, there are a number of actively maintained lists where other curious gamers have searched for games to determine whether or not they’re DRM-free (and what steps are required to play them without Steam).
Since there are roughly 50,000 games on the Steam market, no list is going to be exhaustive, but going through these lists will give you a head start.
If you don’t see a game you’re interested in, do a quick search for the game name and additional parameters like “DRM-free Steam” to see what’s available. The game may not be on a curated list yet, but many times someone on a forum or subreddit has done the legwork for you.
However, whether you try it yourself or do a little research on the internet, it’s not too difficult to get to the bottom of a Steam game’s DRM status.
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