#0xempress

OVERVIEW

Alright so recently Hogwarts Legacy was cracked by a pretty infamous figure in video game piracy, 0xEmpress (Empress for short).

Empress is a Russian games cracker (as in they crack video games, I'm not sure if there's a better operative for this, sorry) who accrued attention in the games piracy scene for their specialty; routinely bypassing Denuvo DRM. A feat which no one had been capable of doing until, or since, Empress.

A DRM (Short for Digital Rights Management) is something added to a piece of software to prevent or restrict unauthorized redistribution. This is usually in pieces of code which check digital certificates which, if not present, will prevent the software from operating.

DRM is known for being annoying, even to players who play games legitimately. To pirates, though, it is the major obstacle they need to overcome when cracking a game. And with how often DRMs are updated, this makes the challenge an active battle between the creator and the pirate.

Cracking is simply the act of making the game not limited by this DRM and putting it into a state which allows it to be pirated and distributed.

Empress is known amongst video game pirates specifically for her ability to bypass Denuvo.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper is a DRM developed by Denuvo Software Solutions and is notoriously the toughest DRM to bypass for most pirates. 

This is due to the methods Denuvo used, being “integrated into the games code” and “assigning a unique authentication token to each copy of the game” according to Empress. That, coupled with just how frequent Denuvo updated made any attempt at bypassing the DRM hopeless.

Very few had cracked Denuvo games, and none did so frequently. Until Empress.

Every game she cracks uses Denuvo. Her refusal to share her methods also means she practically owns the market when it comes to cracking those games.

Other than being free copies of otherwise expensive games, Empress’ cracks of Denuvo games have been reported to actually speed up the performance, as the DRM seems to be rather CPU intensive on games it is installed on. 

Her ability to crack impossible DRM quickly and efficiently has given Empress a reputation as a one-of-a-kind legend in video game piracy circles.

So Empress is, in short, incredibly good at cracking games. She's gotten past the worst of the worst when it comes to DRM and publishes her cracks online for the masses.

Except, like many of history's greats, Empress is fucking insane.

NFOS

Within a lot of pirated games are included specific types of files, .nfo files. NFO, short for info, is a type of text file created by a videogame cracker which contains information about the game and the specific pirated copy, such as language changing options.

Like many text-only formats, the users of NFO files have gotten creative, drawing elaborate ascii art within the files as a way to distinguish themselves. Empress is no different.

Empress' NFOs include her name in giant bold letters, held up by pillars which stretch the entire length of the file. Additionally, she includes boxes of text with a distinguishing calling card.

--EXPRESSES--

ALL HATE & INSULTS

--DEPRESSES--

ALL DENUVO SCUM

--IMPRESSES--

ALL PIRATES ACROSS THE SEA

This is followed by a mention of the game's title, the type of DRM the game had/has (For example, Denuvo v10, Steam, Epic, VMProtect), as well as the emulator a game may be using.

Below the info are Empress' donation links to various cryptocurrency wallets, such as BTC, ETH, and Monero. These donations are said to "fund further DRM research and cover living costs."

Donators of $500 or more are able to request any game they want a crack for, so long as it has Denuvo DRM.

Further are contact links, including e-mail (notably protonmail), qTox (a secure instant messaging service), as well as her subreddit link.

The penultimate section of the NFO are the ~Release Notes~ and ~Install Notes~, which detail methods for installing the game onto a machine, as well as what DLC or edition of the game is included.

The final section, however, is the reason her NFOs are special. Aptly titled ~Special Notes~, this section is for any personal messages Empress wishes to send out to readers.

~SPECIAL NOTES~

Empress uses this ~Special Notes~ section to communicate with her audience, wax philosophical, and generally ramble to a non-specific audience. Often, these are related to videogame drama and events.

This section of the NFO is where Empress will break formality, switching to her signature typing style. Her RANDOM capitalization of WORDS she uses for either EMPHASIS or just GENERAL SHOUTING, her fondness of profanity, the creativity in her insults, ending a large amount of her statements with (middle finger), "quotations, both for emphasis and to actually quote general statements."

This typing style truly makes the ~SPECIAL NOTES~ stand out, especially since a lot of her rambles are utter nonsense.

It is comprehensible, yes. It has a point it is trying to make, yes. It is not as if she is being silly for the sake of it. She is unhinged.

Many of the NFOs are, to put it lightly, mean. Within a good amount of her NFOs, she includes messages to the companies who created the games, as well as Denuvo.

For example, the following was included within the Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak crack.

"Message to capcom:

How dare you charge $430 for 98% worthless DLC

How dare you even charge to make edit to the

main character in the game?

FUCK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES YOU GREEDY FUCEKRS.

It didn't really help paying like little SLUTS

to denuvo to protect your DLCs, did it?...

It also didn't help that you made retarded DRM

of your own on top either, did it?...

Next time, please don't waste more of your

money and don't shame yourselves - focus on the

actual game instead, FAGGOTS.

Message to denuvo:

With this release, I have just proven that I 

CAN and I WILL destroy your pathetic protection 

no matter what you do. And now you can kindly 

go fuck yourselves because your "Anti-Tamper" 

has been TAMPERED with by me once again, and 

is completely destroyed, LOSERS (middle finger)."

You may have noticed how she ended the statement to CAPCOM. Empress seems to hold many of the same opinions as the far-right gamergate crowd (i.e TheQuartering, Rags, etc.), bashing newer games with representation as "gay garbage".

"Games like: 'Gays Gone, Spidershit, Gay of War" get very high scores. Every fucking gay garbage comes out and you all love it..."

Except, seemingly, female representation. In her Dying Light 2 NFO, she states:

"STOP COMPARING 'SR' to 'GTA' you 

DUMB PIECES OF SHIT. And I am 

already aware of the "pre-hate" on 

GTA 6, just cause people learnt it 

will feature a 'female' character. 

What the HELL is WRONG with that, 

you sexist motherfuckers?"

Additionally, within the NFO for Dying Light 2, she praises the Saints Row reboot, stating it "is the BEST saints row game made." Saints Row, of course, being a series known for featuring gay relationships.

Despite this, Empress claims to be "bi-sexual and fully lesbian." The following statement was also included in her NFO for Maneater:

"3-Yes, I think any game without a female protagonist to be either gay or garbage. And YES,

I fucking hate most female characters in games whom are skinny and skeleton figure.

Big 'FUCK YOU' to every developer who thinks a skinny female is beautiful."

From these details, it can be inferred that Empress is a person with complicated and downright bizarre political views.

Though, this does not compare to her stance on trans people. A stance which has garnered her a bit of attention as of late.

FITGIRL

Fitgirl is a Russian-born repacker, responsible for repacking and distributing a large number of pirated games.

Repacking is the act of taking a game's files and compressing them down into something smaller, while still playing as normal. Repacking can be done to legitimate versions of games, however within the pirating community repacking is an essential practice as it reduces file sizes of cracked games for easy internet transfer.

So while repackers are distributors and do work with cracked games, they are not the ones to crack the game. This is a common misconception, many people believing Fitgirl is the one to crack the games. This results in a lot of people thinking Fitgirl is behind the cracks, thanking her specifically for the game.

Empress does not enjoy this fact. At one point during 2021, Empress got into a feud with Fitgirl. She intentionally limited the download rate of her crack to 200kb/s in an attempt to stop Fitgirl and other repackers from accessing it.

This was under the belief that repackers "steal the spotlight" from her work. After this, Fitgirl made a statement saying she would not be repacking any more Empress cracks.

The drama did not end here.

In 2023, the developer build of Atomic Heart was leaked, a developer build which used Denuvo as its DRM. As such, Fitgirl made a statement that, since Empress is the only person who knows how to crack Denuvo, she would not be repacking the build.

In a post on the r/piratedgames subreddit, a user posted a screenshot of Fitgirl's statement and asked why "Fitgirl is butthurt." A comment on this post, notably with more upvotes than the original post, stated:

R-Slur warning:

"FG (Fitgirl) is not ,butthurt'

Empress was the one who got butthurt and went full retard."

Empress, in a move which probably didn't help to clear the "butthurt" label, responded to this comment in a 436 word reddit post on her subreddit r/EMPRESSEVOLUTION. The full post is quite long but contains quite a few accusations against Fitgirl, as well as the typical flavorings of Empress ranting. Notably, Empress does not capitalize the start of her sentences like in her NFOs.

To summarize, Empress claims:

Fitgirl was pretending to have actually cracked the games that Empress herself had done as a way to boost her image.

That Fitgirl is actually a man, along with some transphobic language around that (Sissy and faggot, specifically). (This claim is difficult to prove as no proof was given. Fitgirl uses a picture of a french actress to represent herself online. As I cannot validate the claim, I will stick to she/her pronouns for fitgirl.)

Fitgirl was locking any post about Empress. (I am assuming she meant reddit posts on r/piratedgames, but Fitgirl does not seem to be a moderator so it's unclear if that is what she meant)

Fitgirl was begging for money, including a screenshot of Fitgirl's donation page. (A notably hypocritical statement)

The second point is particularly important because it leads into-

RECENT EVENTS

Her latest crack, Hogwarts Legacy, is a divisive game. To say even that much would be an understatement. It also includes Denuvo DRM, which made Empress the only one with a method of cracking it. Coupled with the fact that it is a popular triple-A release, there was no doubt it would be Empress' next target.

Less than two weeks after the game's official release, Empress announced the game had been cracked. The crack, which was quickly distributed across the internet, contained another one of Empress' rants in its NFO.

This ~SPECIAL MESSAGE~, which is 549 words long, details Empress' support of JK Rowling and virulent hatred of trans/WOKE people, though is surprisingly more legible than most of her other rants. This is not to say that the words she said had any actual weight to them.

The rant contains all the workings of an Empress NFO. Unhinged, half-baked philosophy wrapped with a bow of profanity. The only thing lacking compared to most of her other NFOs is a particular anti-corporate sentiment. Empress even tried her hand at poetry towards the end. It isn't good.

Not long before the Hogwarts Legacy crack was released, Empress made a certain post to Reddit, seemingly trying to “call out” trans people as well as a generalized leftist sentiment. The whole thing is full of logical fallacies and blatant bigotry. Unsurprisingly for Reddit, this had consequences. If you have paused reading this at any point to look up r/EmpressEvolution, you may have noticed a little notice.

"r/EmpressEvolution has been banned from Reddit.

This community was banned for repeatedly violating Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct."

Her reddit account, unsurprisingly, got the same treatment.

In what I assume was a revised version of the NFO for the latest update of Hogwarts Legacy (And thus the latest crack of the game), she added:

"To reddit admins: hey, keep collecting TRASH and

don't be ashamed whenever you drop yours pants in

a BACKLASH.

To reddit slaves: suck it harder bitches, you are

not doing good ENOUGH. Keep on it and do try to

forget the CUFF."

DENOUEMENT

Honestly, I can't think of a great way to conclude this. It's like stopping a story half-way through, since Empress seems to be going strong, as well as how much I glossed over in just trying to get this much out.

There were a lot of details I could have gone into, such as,

Empress' Dark Souls 2 fever dream which got her into cracking games.

Empress' self-proclaimed cult.

Her weird obsession with calling DRM a "Cancer" (which might relate back to her Dark Souls 2 fever dream)

Whoever the fuck Mr_Goldberg is.

The true extent of Empress' weird philosophy. I glazed over it a lot but she's really into pretending to be a philosopher.

Her hatred for Stray. Like she really fucking hates that game.

Her "cult" having a $10k entry fee (I think it's a bit weird in how she words it)

People think she's actually a guy a lot and that infuriates her.

Empress got arrested at some point??? and she blamed Fitgirl??? This one is pretty hard to verify for a number of reasons.

The Sergiu situation

She might possibly include viruses and mining code in her cracks? Difficult to verify as I only saw it from a single source.

Is Empress real? Is this a persona she puts on to attract a cult of personality so people notice her more? Or is this truly how she is, a one-of-a-kind video game piracy expert with incredibly strange worldviews? Either way, she's become an icon, not just because of her skill, but also due to her controversy and unordinary but enrapturing personality.

I would like to say that, while I did write all 2655 words of this document, I do not in any way support Empress. I mean don't get me wrong, piracy is ballin'. But Empress as a person is just... gross. Her views and ideologies would make even some alt-right pundits look meek. However, I think you can admire a person for being strange and bizarre, as well as captivating, while also acknowledging their many, many flaws.

Links (CONTENT WARNING: SLURS, TRANSPHOBIA, HOMOPHOBIA):

A github of all of Empress' NFOs.

https://model-map.github.io/EmpressNfo/

A timeline on the CrackWatch subreddit of Empress. I actually didn't find this until I finished writing this (and tbh cannot be bothered to verify most of the stuff I've said through it) but if you want to do more reading, here it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lqibnh/empress_there_and_back_again/

Fitgirl's statement about Empress.

https://fitgirl-repacks.site/my-statement-about-empress/

The post/comment of Empress and Fitgirl being called butthurt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PiratedGames/comments/1171usf/comment/j99oueq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Empress' response to being called butthurt.

https://www.unddit.com/r/EmpressEvolution/comments/117e8tz/important_message_to_rpiratedgames_moderators/

The post allegedly by Empress claiming to have been arrested. Again, this is pretty unverifiable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lqs91b/finally_caught_by_the_police_goodjob_everyone/

List of a bunch of recently archived Empress activity. https://justpaste.it/8c1w0

Same thing as above. https://pastebin.com/uhF3JiWu

The reddit post she made that got her banned off the site.

https://www.unddit.com/r/EmpressEvolution/comments/117ywff/the_top_tier_contradiction_hypocrisy_of_the_human/ https://archive.vn/856Do

Wiki page for Denuvo, featuring a little mention of our problematic fave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

Wired article about Empress.

GAME START

After Hogwarts Legacy, Empress began to slow down. She did still release some cracks but very few. She cited this to be because of a lack of interesting games.

Then in 2023, scene group SKIDROW released a crack of a Denuvo-protected game called Fe.

SCENE GROUP

A scene group or warez scene group is simply a group of pirates working together. They stay under the radar and typically don't typically distribute their cracked games on their own.

SKIDROW specifically are one of the oldest surviving scene groups and has been known for cracking multiple Denuvo games in the past. These cracks have occasionally been criticized in their level of quality and thoroughness, but still function nonetheless.

Many scene groups don't work for profit, instead for reputation or their own egos. Empress, who does not work with a scene group, does accept donations and offers to crack any Denuvo game if paid enough.

DRAMA START

In her NFO for the 2018 Yakuza spinoff Judgement, Empress fired shots at SKIDROW. Claiming that instead of removing the Denuvo for Fe, they exploited a backend in the game's engine Unity to "... restore some generic code in Assembly-CShapr.dll". (CShapr here is I think a misspelling of CSharp)

I'm don't know jack about shit when it comes to this so I can't verify if this is true, but comments on the crack release on the CrackWatch subreddit mention that "All calls to Denuvo dll were in Assembly-CSharp.dll." and that it's "the easiest type of Denuvo game to crack but it still takes a huge effort to do so"

Which means Empress was likely upset that instead of removing Denuvo, which is how she cracks games, SKIDROW instead just bypassed it, or at least found the path of least resistance.

In the same NFO, she proceeds to insult SKIDROW more and belittle them. Pretty classic Empress behaviour.

SKIDROW RESPONSE

SKIDROW fired back in their Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 crack's NFO with a very hefty rant.

While Empress's callout was pretty ballistic (which is expected), SKIDROWS is downright nuclear.

SKIDROW begins by immediately throwing out transphobic slurs. Empress is a woman and gets incredibly upset when people mistake her as otherwise. She's also not trans and is violently transphobic. SKIDROW, however, claims that the entire persona of 0xEMPRESS is a front put on by a different cracker, Voksi. Voksi was a male Bulgarian cracker of a similar level of reverence amongst pirates as Empress. This is a consequence of his speed, competency, and the rare skill of cracking Denuvo DRM.

So like Empress, Voksi was a Denuvo cracker. I say Voksi was a cracker because he seemingly retired after an arrest in 2018 by Bulagarian police. This came as a result of Irdeto, Denuvo's then-new owners, filing a criminal complaint about Voksi. This was possible because, as alleged by Reddit users, Voksi was very flippant with his privacy and security online. Since his arrest, Voksi has not publicly admitted to cracking any games and appears detached from the scene.

BACKGROUND

Much of the tension between SKIDROW and Empress seems to relate to old scene group drama. In 2014, SKIDROW accused up-and-coming rival scene group CODEX of stealing code for their crack of Trials Fusion. CODEX denies this and refutes specific points that SKIDROW makes about similarities in their cracks.

Whether or not a theft happened is difficult to know. Whether or not a theft took place is irrelevant, as SKIDROW appears to keep that grudge with them to this day. While Trials Fusion did not (as far as I'm aware) use Denuvo DRM, Empress still has a tie to it, and to SKIDROW's grudge against CODEX. That being-

Empress was part of CODEX—or at least did their Denuvo cracking for them—and was their only cracker that worked on Denuvo DRM (if you accuse me of writing this with AI because of the em dash I'll gut you).

CODEX retired itself in 2022 due to a "lack of competition," but Empress kept cracking.

Back to the NFO. SKIDROW refutes various claims that Empress made in her NFO, saying that there was plenty of Denuvo that their crack removed. Other claims are refuted and more insults are thrown around.

To be honest, SKIDROW's NFO is much more vicious than anything Empress has made. They make attempts to doxx her by accusing her of being Voksi, throw out more slurs in one NFO than five of Empress's combined, and the less over-the-top tone of it all just makes it sound cruel instead of insane.

CLAIM

SKIDROW makes a bold accusation that Empress, claimed 22-ish-year old Russian game's cracker is in fact Voksi, 28-year old Bulgarian former game's cracker.

EVIDENCE FOR

-Empress's age is difficult to believe. While a cracker like Voksi was a teenager when he began cracking games, Empress claims to have been even younger when she started. She also reports her age inconsistently

-Empress has been alleged to sometimes use Bulgarian turns of phrase.

-Empress is very touchy whenever the subject of her gender is brought up.

-Some people don't believe a woman could do the things Empress does.

And that's pretty much it. The evidence against, however, is more substantial.

EVIDENCE AGAINST

Empress has not directly responded (that I know of) to the allegations by SKIDROW. Voksi, however, in a YouTube comment, has. To start, Voksi claims that his legal situation is still on-going and that the police confiscated all of his technology. He claims that countless government agencies are still watching him, making it a foolish move to suddenly invent an online persona.

Voksi and Empress, as well, could not be more unalike. In his statement towards SKIDROW's NFO, the Bulgarian cracker is calm, measured, and writes in the kind of formal English sentences not uncommon for non-native English speakers. Empress, also a non-native, does not really care for grammar that much. She screams, throws quotes around like confetti, and goes to great length to make a fool of herself at every turn. So while Empress would make a good Hyde to Voksi's Jekyll, it's unreasonable to expect it to even be an act.

While it's most likely that 0xEMPRESS is a persona, it seems unreasonable to expect that Voksi, a man under massive scrutiny from multiple cybercrime agencies, would somehow keep an alternate online pirate persona and continue to crack games. Additionally, Empress started her career in 2014, while Voksi ended his in 2018, meaning the persona could not have been a response to his arrest, but something he was already participating in. Voksi, a respected cracker, would have very little reason to split his recognition.

As mentioned before, Voksi was flippant with privacy, whereas Empress was much more guarded. This makes little sense for Voksi to adhere to privacy for his alleged sock puppet, but be careless when it came to his own.

Anyway yeah Empress isn't Voksi. Genuinely surprised that I'm defending Empress of all people but that claim is fucking stupid.

(Okay to be fair I'm more defending Voksi. He seems like a cool guy and I wish him luck in his legal battles (or maybe he sucks as a person and I'll regret saying this but we'll see))

CONCLUSION

This goddamn post was supposed to be a 3 minute "hey here's a bullet list of stuff Empress did lately bye" but it kept unravelling. If you think this post is poorly-formatted, that's why. I had to keep going back and adding more detail.

So a quick summary:

SKIDROW released a crack of Fe, a game with Denuvo.

Empress gets upset, calling a it cheap bypass

SKIDROW goes atomic, saying Empress is actually former cracker Voksi and denying the bypass accusation.

Voksi comes out and denies this.

And that's it. A simple exchange with a deep history to it. Terrible people collide etc etc.

Anyway Empress has scaled back doing Denuvo cracks, wants to make an MMO, and sells AI art now okay byebye.