V2 DRM removal pathway strips protection for post-support-lifecycle and DRM-free store releases while preserving binary signing, game data integrity, and release evidence. The pathway disables the boot license gate, removes runtime unpacker and anti-debugging hooks, and verifies protected features are absent before a DRM-free artifact can ship. DRM-free store releases are covered explicitly.
Release Pathways#
V2/ue/Build/DRM/v2-drm-removal-pathway.json defines two release pathways:
post-support-lifecycle DRM-free release and DRM-free store release. Both
pathways cover Win64, macOS, and Linux AppImage outputs. They use signed source
artifacts, strip protection from the protected build root, and write DRM-free
artifacts under $(ArchiveRoot)/DRMFree.
The removal flow must disable boot license gate checks while preserving optional platform entitlements for online services. It must preserve binary signing and preserve game data integrity, including signed asset manifests and on-load hash verification. DRM-free artifacts must still pass the DRM impact benchmarking comparison so performance and startup behavior do not regress.
CI Gates#
V2/ue/Tools/plan-v2-drm-removal-pathway.py emits the deterministic DRM removal
pathway plan. V2/ue/Tools/check-v2-drm-removal-pathway.py validates the
manifest, planner output, impact benchmarking dependency, binary signing
dependency, game data integrity dependency, Horde wiring, CI workflow wiring,
and this runbook.
Required release gates:
drm-removal-pathway-plan-generateddrm-removal-pathway-coveragedrm-removal-strip-protection-coveragedrm-removal-signing-integrity-preserveddrm-removal-drm-free-validationdrm-removal-approval-guardrails
The approval gate requires publishing, security, platform, legal, and fair-play sign-off. The rollback plan remains mandatory so protected artifacts can be reinstated if a store, certification, or live-service dependency rejects the DRM-free build.