[SOLVED] Do Steam games require being online?

[DoYouKubuntu]

A few days ago, my power was partially out for several hours. Naturally, one of the two areas affected was the room where all my modems/routers live. So I was without an Internet connection for a few hours.

I thought, gee, this is a great time to play some of those games I bought from Steam recently! So I tried to fire them up...

...but nothing worked. It was looking for, and failing to find, a connection.

I thought these were standalone games, installed on my computer, that could be played offline. None is competitive/played against other players/multi-player/etc.

Is there a setting I've missed? Or did I completely misunderstand what I was buying?

[claydoh]

I think it depends on the game and/or the games actual publisher. Some may need to be 'validated' online. Steam does have options to sync saved games, I get a warning when I am offline, but a couple of games I play do load offline just fine, though these are old ones like Half Life 2. Will test some more in a bit.

[claydoh]

So far every single game I have tried works fine offline
Borderlands2
All my Half Life /HL2 games
Metro Exodus
Shadow of the Tomb Raider

[DoYouKubuntu]

Interesting. Thanks, @claydoh.

I've scoured my settings on Steam; if there's something there controlling this behavior, I've missed it.

[claydoh]

Again, I don't think anything in Steam is doing this, but the individual games themselves requiring a connection. I don't use any customized Steam options at all that I can recall, other than the location of my game library.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Gotcha!

[mr_raider]

Steam has an offline mode. It's in the settings

[DoYouKubuntu]

Steam has an offline mode. It's in the settings

But, as I noted, I've scoured its settings, and yet still couldn't play without a connection, so I'm either MISSING something in its settings (can you point me to it?) or it just isn't working for me!

[Snowhog]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...3160-agcb-2555

[DoYouKubuntu]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...3160-agcb-2555

Thanks, @Snowhog! I believe that's it! (And sorry I was too lazy to find it myself.)