How we test whether a game really works offline

People assume 'offline' is a yes-or-no feature. In practice it's a spectrum, and a lot of games fall somewhere in the middle. Here's how we sort them out.

Step one is a clean install, then we open the game once with Wi-Fi on so it can download whatever it needs. Step two is airplane mode. We play for a solid stretch and watch for any screen that stalls or demands a reconnect.

The sneaky ones pass the first ten minutes, then ask you to connect before the next chapter or hide your progress until you sync. Those get flagged clearly in the review, because nothing is more annoying than a dead battery of a feature on a flight.

We also check whether your save survives a force-close while offline. If it doesn't, that's a dealbreaker for us and we say so.