Persona 5 Royal won't start without internet connection

[Dr. Venture Sr.]

As the title says.

It starts in Windows without an internet connection and defaults to offline during the startup networking prompts.
However, when trying to do the same on the steam deck it brings up a windows-like popup that says something to the effect that the game cannot start without an internet connection and then closes the game when clicking ok.
It will start, however, if you do put it into offline mode beforehand, assuming you know you won't have an internet connection.
I can't always guarantee that I will have internet available when I turn this thing on or anticipate when I won't have it when I do want to play it.

This thing can be frustrating to use as a portable system when publishers/devs can kneecap it from portable offline use by not giving you a viable option to use it offline whether due to drm, network implementation or bugginess when not connected. I'll just go back to using a vita instead (P5R product placement really worked[and it has P4G {ha}]) and put windows on this... when ever Valve decides to finally give us an official option... Sorry Volvo, love you guys... ♥♥♥♥ you Sega/ATLUS... but pls keep the ports coming anyway.

[Minneyar]

Which game are you talking about? Most games will run fine without an internet connection, although sometimes Steam will seem to hang for a minute before it decides to launch games in offline mode.

Obviously, if a game requires an internet connection, there's nothing Steam can do about that. If you're launching a game that uses Denuvo, also note that Denuvo requires an internet connection on first launch to validate, but after that it should work fine in offline mode.

Not sure why you're angry at Volvo, their cars aren't involved here.

[Jâbbérwôkkï]

It isn't Valve's fault that some game producers force players to "phone home" to verify that we paid for their product. What you can do is Launch the game while connected to wi-fi for it's verification requirement, & then put the deck in offline mode. Then put the Deck to sleep instead of turning it completely off (don't put it in a case if you do this though as it can overheat & ruin your Deck). Wake the Deck up when you get where you're going and resume the game from sleep. Otherwise, pay close attention to what you buy on Steam to whether it has need of Third Party EULA with secondary app login (ie EA app, Ubisoft, etc), & avoid buying those.

[ReBoot]

What game though?

[Dr. Venture Sr.]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

What game though?

Persona 5 Royal and Final Fantasy 7 (not the remaster).

Tbh, I only tried these two titles with no internet connection and gave up after becoming frustrated. After trying the rest of the fifty-something other titles I have installed only Death's Gambit wouldn't start either.

Originally posted by Jâbbérwôkkï:

It isn't Valve's fault that some game producers force players to "phone home" to verify that we paid for their product. What you can do is Launch the game while connected to wi-fi for it's verification requirement, & then put the deck in offline mode. Then put the Deck to sleep instead of turning it completely off (don't put it in a case if you do this though as it can overheat & ruin your Deck). Wake the Deck up when you get where you're going and resume the game from sleep. Otherwise, pay close attention to what you buy on Steam to whether it has need of Third Party EULA with secondary app login (ie EA app, Ubisoft, etc), & avoid buying those.

You're right, can't blame 'em for what the publishers decide to do with network connectivity. I was baffled that FF7 (not the remake) required it, of all games.
Persona 5 Royal is kinda broken though because of it. You can start it up in windows without an internet connection and it'll default to offline on it's own but on the steam deck it forces you to close out the game every time. It does work properly if you have the foresight to put it into offline mode though, assuming you know that you are actually going to be without internet connectivity.
The sleep while on wifi work around sounds promising though I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. Thank you for the suggestions.

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Not sure why you're angry at Volvo, their cars aren't involved here.

Valve=Volvo memes. It's a thing.

Going to edit the title for clarity and to attempt to reduce the sodium content

[Kaptain Komodo]

I don't have any real experience with the encoding experience but it seems like in this day and age that a game could theoretically ping its servers once or twice, record your IP and then proceed to allow you to play in offline mode whenever you want.

After all, once the game pings the server and then allows you to boot the game, has it not already recorded that you own the game? Why does it have to do it every time you play it and not just initially after purchase?

They probably don't think like this, though. I'm sure the owners all the way at the top of these companies don't care if the experience is tarnished if it means they can stop two more pirates who were probably going to pirate it anyways.

[Dr. Venture Sr.]

Originally posted by Kaptain Komodo:

Why does it have to do it every time you play it and not just initially after purchase?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It frustrating tho

[ReBoot]

FF7 indeed has an online-only launcher. No idea about Persona though.