Games with online requirements

 You've been disconnected

The interconnectivity of the world through the power of online is a magical and wonderful tool that has revolutionised the way we live, how our societies intermingle and connect; and how much bizarrely themed Anime we can watch directly from Japan. (I saw one about a school full of gambling addicts! Them Anime makers get real crazy sometimes.) But for all of it's positives, there are some rather big negatives. Not many intrinsic negatives, mind, more circumstantial negatives that have popped up as the world has become more familiar and acclimatised to what the Internet provides us. Exploitation, scams, the very concept of the Metaverse and the addiction to the idea of being hooked to the 'forever online' pipeline and dragging everyone along for the ride.

Look, I know that fundamentally there are going to be games out there that require online connections in order to run; that's just the nature of how certain genres of games have come to be. MMOs, for example, can't exactly bring it's players into a cohesive shared online world if those players aren't sending up-to-date data packets of everything they're doing to the host server; therefore a constant connection is kind of a necessity. Same with competitive multiplayer games and pretty much anything that takes advantage of the fundamental functionality of games to provide a unique online-style of experience to it's player base. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just the way that things are. But then there are the games that make you scratch your head and wonder.

Such as EA's Sim City. Do you remember when that abomination landed? A city builder game which necessitated an internet connection at all times for a game that largely consists of solitary city planning and late-game infrastructure troubleshooting? Why- so that some minor online gimmick of 'virtual player visitors' could be enabled? No, the real reason was obviously so that this could serve as a kind of hands-on DRM (Digital Rights Management) to ensure that the copies of the game that were being played were legitimate, which is the excuse for a lot of 'Always Online' systems around this time. Of course, not everyone has the kind of constantly secure internet, or even the bandwidth, to facilitate that kind of imposition; and thus the system, once said to be integral to the foundation of the game, was neatly exorcised in an evening. Too late though, the reputation of the franchise was forever tarnished and within a few years Cities: Skylines dropped to totally steal that entire market away from EA whilst they slept. Couldn't have happened to nicer guys.

These days it's a lot rarer to see always online systems. Or at least, it's typically not socially acceptable for a game to potentially drop it's players if they ever disconnect from some theoretical server floating in the company farm. And when such a game does exist, the backlash is loud and unrelenting. Just this year Redfall got spat at for requiring such a connection for a game that, whilst it offered 4 player co-op, fully allowed it's players to engage in an offline single player mode as well. Once again, the developers said it was essential to the heart of the game, only to figure out that there was apparently an off switch, it would just need some time to code in. (Too bad everyone will be done playing the game after one full day, because it wasn't very good.) Think that's the measure? Oh, you ain't heard nothing.

Doom Eternal is a game with Online Only requirements; did you know that? Not to the extent where you'll be kicked out of a single player campaign match for losing connection, but enough that dropping will force you into the menu to inform you of that misfortune. And why? Honestly I haven't the slightest clue. I think it may have something to do with this online persistent levelling functionality that is shared through the account like some sort of free battlepass- but why does that mean it needs to encroach on, and thus interrupt, my offline gaming? The very heart of Doom Eternal is it's single player campaign, and that the team thought it totally fine to potential sabotage the sanctity of that system with online gibberish is galling to say the least.

Elden Ring is another recent game with frustrating online components, but here it makes a lot more sense. Souls games have been messing around with online competitive and cooperative side features for as long as the genre has been fully formed. But in order to maintain that drop-in invasion style of game Elden Ring demands you log into their servers upon the start and remain logged in forever more. Should you drop that means you are kicked back to the main menu and you have to load in from scratch- the one thing worse than actually dying. Playing offline needs you to load into the game fresh from the start detailing you don't want to engage, and one of the routes to a major boss requires the invasion of three other players, forcing online play, and thus online requirements, upon you.

And then there's old faithful, Diablo 4. The latest in the Diablo franchise and the first to offer no form of offline character creation whatsoever. Here the excuse is more ephemeral as Offline characters used to be a key part of the Diablo adventure for those that wanted nothing to do with leaderboards or seasons or any of that stuff. Now, however, it's almost as though Blizzard live in constant fear of their players cheating and thus need to be watching them twenty four seven- they're willing to risk the smoothness of gameplay to keep their servers hooked to people's systems, in such a manner that has cost high performance players their hardcore characters. Punishing players is one thing, killing them in a loading screen because the severs are feeling slow today is another altogether.

In an ideal world we'd all boast fantastically consistent internet connections that allow us to link wherever we need for however long- but we're far from that world. Some of us can't manage internet connections like that, can't afford to, or plain just don't want to. The clumsiness of Always Online requirements seems to consistently undermine the potential utilities and more often than not end up riling the fanbase into a frenzy. So why are we still doing this? I think it's one of those pendulum swing issues, that the industry is trying to normalise but the world just isn't as built-up as it looks like on a map. Maybe in the days when the Internet truly is as ubiquitous as we think it is, such concepts can be snuck under the radar until it becomes a way of life. For now, however, I think most of us just want to play a game and not worry about what our modem is up to.