Offline mode issue

[Fang]

I was trying to play this game yesterday when my internet connection is down. When I start the game in offline mode, it gave me an error message saying: "Steam is currently in Offline Mode. For the first launch go in Online Mode..." The thing is that it's not my first launch. I have played it for 100+ hours. I have taken a screenshot, but not sure how to attach it...

Developers, could you fix this bug so we can play this great game in offline mode soon?

[Fang]

Correction: i have played for 12+ hours not 100+...

[Dev]

Any game on Steam with DRM = this behaviour is normal. Some Square Enix/Activision titles are notorious for requiring online connection even if you’re playing offline mode like Just Cause 4 etc…

TL;DR is don’t stress. There’s nothing wrong with game file of BMW and off you go onto its store page you’ll see it advertised Denuvo DRM requirement and this is what you’re seeing…

Sometimes the online verification is triggered when you update game files previously and turned device off hence requiring new session run ID

[Josh]

Think it is just the 1st launch since an update. I got it too. Logged on, launched, then logged off and no problem. Family mode with my sons account, so I log off on occasion.

[Fang]

@Dev, i don't understand what DRM is, so i googled it - "3rd party DRM is a second "layer" of DRM that is put in by the developers of that game and not Steam."

So basically, developers of the game have put in this restrictions that I can't play it when offline. I need an explanation. It's a single player game, why do you require us to stay online? It's not that you are steaming content to me. The whole game has been downloaded.

[Fang]

@Josh, I think i mentioned in the post that it's not first time launch.

[redhongkong]

i think its the denuvo kicking in.

[BEEP!]

That's got to be Denuvo bugging out or something Steam's DRM can go years without being connected in fact a non online only game with Steam DRM only needs to be connected to the internet on time of installing the game on the said PC I have a laptap that's has broken wify and it hasn't been connected to the internet since 2015 and all the installed game's still open just fine in offline mode.

[BEEP!]

Originally posted by Fang:

@Dev, i don't understand what DRM is, so i googled it - "3rd party DRM is a second "layer" of DRM that is put in by the developers of that game and not Steam."

So basically, developers of the game have put in this restrictions that I can't play it when offline. I need an explanation. It's a single player game, why do you require us to stay online? It's not that you are steaming content to me. The whole game has been downloaded.

It's Denuvo that's most likly the problem problem it requires a game to be verified every so often usually once every 3 days to a week on average it requires that internet connection it's there to stop people from cracking the game for other to pirate and as of right now the only person that cracked Denuvo is a crazy chick that doesn't crack game's anymore.

So chances are Denuvo bugged out on you which isn't that unordinary a lot of things can mess with it family share can be a problem installing the game on multiple deices your security could be effecting it or the game files are corrupted in some way or you just got unlucky and it did a verify when you went offline mode.

[Dev]

Originally posted by 1080Puktra:

Originally posted by Fang:

@Dev, i don't understand what DRM is, so i googled it - "3rd party DRM is a second "layer" of DRM that is put in by the developers of that game and not Steam."

So basically, developers of the game have put in this restrictions that I can't play it when offline. I need an explanation. It's a single player game, why do you require us to stay online? It's not that you are steaming content to me. The whole game has been downloaded.

It's Denuvo that's most likly the problem problem it requires a game to be verified every so often usually once every 3 days to a week on average it requires that internet connection it's there to stop people from cracking the game for other to pirate and as of right now the only person that cracked Denuvo is a crazy chick that doesn't crack game's anymore.

So chances are Denuvo bugged out on you which isn't that unordinary a lot of things can mess with it family share can be a problem installing the game on multiple deices your security could be effecting it or the game files are corrupted in some way or you just got unlucky and it did a verify when you went offline mode.

Yep Denuvo implementation by devs cam vary significantly and whilst some games with Denuvo can appear less intrusive others can have bunch of problems including every few days online verification required.

Learnt my lesson with Just Cause 4 of all games whilst travelling with Steam Deck. I had verified and launched the game before travelling but got delayed few days and when I got on airplane few days later the game wouldn’t launch without internet connection again at hotel…

[Pop]

Originally posted by Dev:

Originally posted by 1080Puktra:

It's Denuvo that's most likly the problem problem it requires a game to be verified every so often usually once every 3 days to a week on average it requires that internet connection it's there to stop people from cracking the game for other to pirate and as of right now the only person that cracked Denuvo is a crazy chick that doesn't crack game's anymore.

So chances are Denuvo bugged out on you which isn't that unordinary a lot of things can mess with it family share can be a problem installing the game on multiple deices your security could be effecting it or the game files are corrupted in some way or you just got unlucky and it did a verify when you went offline mode.

Yep Denuvo implementation by devs cam vary significantly and whilst some games with Denuvo can appear less intrusive others can have bunch of problems including every few days online verification required.

Learnt my lesson with Just Cause 4 of all games whilst travelling with Steam Deck. I had verified and launched the game before travelling but got delayed few days and when I got on airplane few days later the game wouldn’t launch without internet connection again at hotel…

So let’s just say it forces you to go online and update the game even though you don’t want to. Is that Denuvo taking affect?

[Dev]

Originally posted by Pop:

Originally posted by Dev:

Yep Denuvo implementation by devs cam vary significantly and whilst some games with Denuvo can appear less intrusive others can have bunch of problems including every few days online verification required.

Learnt my lesson with Just Cause 4 of all games whilst travelling with Steam Deck. I had verified and launched the game before travelling but got delayed few days and when I got on airplane few days later the game wouldn’t launch without internet connection again at hotel…

So let’s just say it forces you to go online and update the game even though you don’t want to. Is that Denuvo taking affect?

Denuvo is not associated with game updates/patches. Any game updates are rolled out separately to any DRM where if Steam detects an online internet connection at steam login will auto scan steamapps (your games library) to look for developer rolled out updates.

Few things here:

1) You'll see shader compilation updates that are more often with proton devices like steam decks. This is not from the developers but rather directly compiled by Valve and pushed out for certain games leveraging crowd sourced shader compiles to theoretically improve shader performance. These updates can prevent you from playing but you should be able to force skip shader update and force compile on game launch to play offline.

2) standard game updates from devs. These updates generally come with patch notes (in blue text) in your download queue and you might see the game library page where the play button should be green is blue with update button. This means when you logged onto steam it detected an internet connection. So even if say you do not update game file and proceed to disconnect internet/airplane mode and restart steam, steam will remember the game needs update so you are SoL and can't play until you update the game

3) DRM - Square Enix and Rockstar games etc. are notorious for DRM features requiring you to log into the game with a internet connection at least few days interval or it essentially won't launch. This is different to game updates/shader updates as your game library page's green play button is unchanged except you press play and it just goes through a load sequence and most times you get game hanging on loading screen or kick you back out to steam. That's how you know DRM kicked in and you need to reconnect to internet.

[Fang]

Originally posted by Dev:

Originally posted by Pop:

So let’s just say it forces you to go online and update the game even though you don’t want to. Is that Denuvo taking affect?

Denuvo is not associated with game updates/patches. Any game updates are rolled out separately to any DRM where if Steam detects an online internet connection at steam login will auto scan steamapps (your games library) to look for developer rolled out updates.

Few things here:

1) You'll see shader compilation updates that are more often with proton devices like steam decks. This is not from the developers but rather directly compiled by Valve and pushed out for certain games leveraging crowd sourced shader compiles to theoretically improve shader performance. These updates can prevent you from playing but you should be able to force skip shader update and force compile on game launch to play offline.

2) standard game updates from devs. These updates generally come with patch notes (in blue text) in your download queue and you might see the game library page where the play button should be green is blue with update button. This means when you logged onto steam it detected an internet connection. So even if say you do not update game file and proceed to disconnect internet/airplane mode and restart steam, steam will remember the game needs update so you are SoL and can't play until you update the game

3) DRM - Square Enix and Rockstar games etc. are notorious for DRM features requiring you to log into the game with a internet connection at least few days interval or it essentially won't launch. This is different to game updates/shader updates as your game library page's green play button is unchanged except you press play and it just goes through a load sequence and most times you get game hanging on loading screen or kick you back out to steam. That's how you know DRM kicked in and you need to reconnect to internet.

Thanks for the details! I am not concerning about #1 or #2 - I turned off shader downloading and let my GPU to compile when necessary; waiting for occasionally updates are totally fine. But #3 means we cannot play this game in some of the most needed time: like house internet is down, travelling, etc. Who's responsible for DRM? Where can we report it to the responsible party?

[Dev]

Originally posted by Fang:

Originally posted by Dev:

Denuvo is not associated with game updates/patches. Any game updates are rolled out separately to any DRM where if Steam detects an online internet connection at steam login will auto scan steamapps (your games library) to look for developer rolled out updates.

Few things here:

1) You'll see shader compilation updates that are more often with proton devices like steam decks. This is not from the developers but rather directly compiled by Valve and pushed out for certain games leveraging crowd sourced shader compiles to theoretically improve shader performance. These updates can prevent you from playing but you should be able to force skip shader update and force compile on game launch to play offline.

2) standard game updates from devs. These updates generally come with patch notes (in blue text) in your download queue and you might see the game library page where the play button should be green is blue with update button. This means when you logged onto steam it detected an internet connection. So even if say you do not update game file and proceed to disconnect internet/airplane mode and restart steam, steam will remember the game needs update so you are SoL and can't play until you update the game

3) DRM - Square Enix and Rockstar games etc. are notorious for DRM features requiring you to log into the game with a internet connection at least few days interval or it essentially won't launch. This is different to game updates/shader updates as your game library page's green play button is unchanged except you press play and it just goes through a load sequence and most times you get game hanging on loading screen or kick you back out to steam. That's how you know DRM kicked in and you need to reconnect to internet.

Thanks for the details! I am not concerning about #1 or #2 - I turned off shader downloading and let my GPU to compile when necessary; waiting for occasionally updates are totally fine. But #3 means we cannot play this game in some of the most needed time: like house internet is down, travelling, etc. Who's responsible for DRM? Where can we report it to the responsible party?

If DRM kicks in and prevents you from playing offline where you believe you have satisfied DRM requirements and therefore you believe it’s a DRM error then you need to contact developer directly via their nominated customer support contact channels. For BMW they have discord and their heishua website.

Last resort is to raise a technical complaint/ticket via Steam by clicking support for the game it’ll give you further options like I have a problem etc.