RDR2 Offline Mode Is A Joke

[gamada2010]

Bought this game to play on steam deck so when I travel I can play. Well I found out while I was on my flight that you can’t play without internet. This is some bulls@;t.

[DMC101]

I thought everyone knew that already. In fact there are very few games you can play offline anymore.

[Tchuchi]

bro that sucks

[Vuyek]

@DMC dude

99% of PC games you can play offline.

[DargonBlak]

After initial installation, and verification of ownership through R* Launcher, you are supposed to be able to play this game "without internet" for a few days.

After the "few days" you will need to reconnect to internet, and to R* through the the R* Launcher, to re-verify ownership.

fwiw, R* Launcher is far less intrusive than other Game Publisher launchers, but they do lack a valid "Offline" mode.

[Bowi]

Originally posted by gamada2010:

Bought this game to play on steam deck so when I travel I can play. Well I found out while I was on my flight that you can’t play without internet. This is some bulls@;t.

I hope you managed to get a refund.

Also, I hope the current situation is just a bug or an oversight, because I am also pissed about that. I usually buy my games on GOG, itchIO or Humble Store, so I was very disappointed when I noticed that I couldn't even start the game without first being connected to the Internet.

I spent many hours trying to make it work, just in case this was a a bug, but nope.

Both GTA4 and GTA5 can be played offline and you can resume your save files without any problem.

(I bought GTA games on Steam, and RDR2 directly from the Rockstar Games Store/Launcher, so this is not a Steam issue.)

[ZombieHunter]

I fail to see why this is an issue. You are probably online anyways.

[Bowi]

Steam Deck.

[TheRanger]

This is a rockstar thing. the launcher and single player is tied to online servers.

[Garlic]

there are alot of single player games thats need internet these days... I miss the good ole days with Halo 3 campaign or something like that

[GranataPerforante]

I'm also pissed seeing that rockstar launcher cant go in online mode bcz its stupid and wont let me play rdr2 since they want to know if i own the game, some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i think they need connection for spyware

[Bowi]

Here's an excerpt of the answer I got from Rockstar Support:

We know this can be inconvenient but it's the way the game was designed. The Launcher often verifies the game ownership and for that you would need to be connected to internet. Once the ownership is verified by the launcher you can then disconnect the internet and continue playing the Story Mode. We do not have any other information to provide on this topic (...)

Kinda sucks... This means they'll need to re-engineer the whole thing if they ever decide to get rid of the Rockstar Game Launcher / Rockstar Social Club.

Games which rely on a launcher and on Internet to launch are too common these days. I swear, someday, we won't be able to play those games because of server's outage!

[Banzai]

I'm not a fan of "always on" games that require a connection, but it says right on the store page under the requirements:

Network: Broadband Internet connection

It's not "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" for a game to require the thing that it says it requires.

[Bowi]

I mean... You are right about that, but it's a bit weird. It should be more obvious than "Network: Broadband Internet connection", IMHO.

People might assume that it only applies to RDO. 🤷‍♂️

Also, I bought the game directly on Rockstar Games Launcher, and the launchers allows me to start the game even when I start the Launcher itself while offline. The Launcher starts in "Offline Mode", and I press "Play"; then I wait 30 seconds and get an in-game error message:

Verifying game ownership failed and your offline activation data could not be loaded.

"your offline activation data could not be loaded"

"your offline activation data could not be loaded"

Sounds a lot to me like something is wrong; like... a bug.

[Aemony]

Originally posted by Banzai:

I'm not a fan of "always on" games that require a connection, but it says right on the store page under the requirements:

Network: Broadband Internet connection

It's not "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" for a game to require the thing that it says it requires.

That requirement doesn't mean the story mode. You can find a more extensive requirement over on the Rockstar Games Support website[support.rockstargames.com], where it states:

internet required for activation, online play, and periodic entitlement verification

The "periodic entitlement verification" means it basically verifies ownership every couple of day or so, and then is supposed to store activation data offline (the error message even references this). However there's a bug or something in the game which causes it to either not save the offline activation data properly, or invalidate any existing activation data on the next launch.

This results in the "offline mode" being broken.

[Bowi]

With the current event with GTA Online, I think that RDR2 should be launchable without Internet: https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-auto-online-has-its-own-dark-souls-style-critical-security-vulnerability-on-pc/

For your information, GTA5 can be launched without you being connected to the Internet...