I just recently tried a Palworld “unofficial demo” since I’ve never been a survival fan. Come to find out there is a game called Spacewar that has some kind of known interface to steam works that is exploitable for multiplayer on pirated games. This let me play on official servers with a 100% illegitimate copy. Whole new world to me.
I’ve also seen “coop fixes” on p2p games like Monster Hunter that allow pirated copies to play together. So the options are there apparently.