AmethystViper: I sadly doubt that because Inti Creates have gone on record to say that they don't plan to make their games or games they co-developed DRM-free on PC. They also screwed ArtPlay and Kickstarter backers of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night over by pulling the DRM-free builds of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon away at the last minute from distribution and backers such as myself were rejected from getting a DRM-free version of the game when I was asked on my backer survey, despite the Kickstarter promised a DRM-free version of the game. The only exception to this is Mighty No. 9 on Steam which I can confirm it can play without Steam (both 32-bit and 64-bit executables) and doesn't using any tricks to get around Steam after the installation.

Crimson-X: Is the DLC for Mighty No 9 also DRM Free or does it require Steam running to use?

Crimson-X: Is the DLC for Mighty No 9 also DRM Free or does it require Steam running to use?

Gognarok: i would say the DLC's are also DRM-free. At least "Retro Hero" is working and you got the "Manic" mode and the retro styled hero, even if Steam isn't running but i don't know how to check "Ray Expansion" without a save game.

...You could get the Steam keys for the main game and DLS's cheaper at Humble at the moment..

Roze: Does anybody have Horizon Zero Dawn on Epic? There is now a claim coming from a brand new PCGamingWiki user which states that the game is no longer DRM-free.

Roze: Does anybody have Horizon Zero Dawn on Epic? There is now a claim coming from a brand new PCGamingWiki user which states that the game is no longer DRM-free.

pedrovay2003: Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of Epic games are going to have to be retested...

https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/pinw1l/devs_sneak_eos_into_singleplayer_games_heres_a/

EDIT: Actually, that might not be the most reliable link. I just tried Remnant again, which link says now requires Epic accounts, and that's absolutely not true. It still runs perfectly fine DRM-free (although you do need to be logged into Epic for the DLC to be recognized, to my knowledge).

twifight: You are mixing some stuff up here pedrovay.

That reddit post claims that some game have retroactively integrated an Epic framework that CAN be used for extra services like achievements and cloud saves, etc.
This is NOT the same as DRM.

The reason that reddit post warns us about it is because that framework makes calls to Epic servers and they can use those calls to get telemetry and other user data, which is a privacy issue.

It is possible that, if a game (!) forces those calls and Epic requires your account to be active, that Epic wants you to have the client on, but that is not always the case. There are other ways to do that. I don't know which methods Epics used and don't care enough to find out.
The problem is that a game CAN require those framework calls in order to function at all, but that is entirely the game developer's choice, not Epic. In short, if this framework causes the game to be unplayable, then the game dev is lazy or screwing you over.
We've seen similar cases with steam, where certain games need steam because they hard coded their game with the steam savegame system. Other games also use that system if steam is on, but just default back to their own system if steam is off.

So that reddit post says nothing about the game client being mandatory or DRM being added. You'd have to test that on a game by game basis.

Grargar: Don't bother with Nioh. It won't run without the client.

Exceed20XX: Is it just me or is there always that bigger disappointment when it seems like a game will start up only for at the last second to hit the DRM halt? A lot of downloading to hit that disappointment.