Over the course of the past several years, more and more of the video games we play have become increasingly connected — depending on a constant link to a steady internet connection in order for it to function. It's an understandable limitation for strictly online multiplayer titles, but aside from those, always-online DRM is a grating barrier to deal with for many.
For one, some sort of offline single-player option is important for game preservation; after all, a game's servers aren't going to remain online forever, and when they're eventually shut down, having such a mode means you can still enjoy the game you own. Without it, that title will never be playable again.
But offline play is also important for people who don't have constant and reliable internet access — an issue that's easy for me to forget about as someone who lives in a large US city in the Pacific Northwest with a good provider, but one that many around the world have to deal with as a result of socioeconomic factors, living in remote locations, or poor infrastructure.
I can't even remember the last time I had an internet outage before yesterday afternoon, when an abrupt blackout in my area left me without a connection for most of the day. Considering I had some outstanding Xbox Games Showcase news to write up, it was pretty frustrating; sure, a break from work is certainly nice, but not being able to finish a timely article isn't (thankfully, a colleague covered for me).
Left unable to work, I figured I may as well play something to kill time — a decision that had me combing through my Steam library, wondering what I had installed that didn't need a connection. That brought me to the recently released Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware's ambitious roguelike spinoff of the fan-favorite 2022 ARPG.
While it was designed with three-player co-op in mind, Nightreign (like all of FromSoftware's other games) offers a single-player option and is fully playable offline as it saves your progress locally and syncs it to the cloud whenever you're next connected to the internet. And thanks to a recent update that made improvements to the solo experience, zooming around Limveld and challenging Nightlord bosses on your own is a ton of fun.
Grinding out several runs in Nightreign made the hours fly by, and once my provider did eventually restore internet to my area, I couldn't help but be thankful for developers like FromSoftware that still make a point of including offline play functionality. It's a feature I may not even think about again or need for months or longer, but it's there for me in the rare cases I do — and for others, it's something that's utilized daily.
For that reason, it's a shame that always-online DRM has come increasingly common in many games, especially ones that have a single-player structure or option and could feasibly work just fine offline. I do understand the need for combating piracy, but frankly, this type of DRM has never seemed particularly effective at stopping it. And in the end, it's players that end up losing, with players faced with unreliable or infrequent connectivity problems losing the most.
So, thank you, FromSoftware and Elden Ring Nightreign, Warhorse Studios and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and others. Even if support for offline play isn't always as common as I'd like it to be, I'm glad there are still developers and games out there that have it ready when it's needed.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a bold new experimental spinoff from FromSoftware that spices up the original game's Soulsborne combat with a roguelike, co-op driven twist. Though it has sizable issues like only having one map or underwhelming enemy variety, it's nevertheless going to be one of this year's best Xbox games and best PC games for Souls fans craving action. It's $39.99, but you can get it for $33.99 at Newegg with the promo code SUMET982.
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