That bites.

I had something similar w/ Shenmue 3, where you can boot it without EGS App going, but you get a never-ending black screen.

I'm probably going to catch a whole lot of flack for this, but I'm going to say it anyway: I really didn't mind Games for Windows - LIVE, and it was exactly for this reason. As long as a GFWL game didn't have server-side activation, it was usable forever, and it had offline profile and offline save data support. Every once in a while, just for the hell of it, I'll pull out my original, imported retail version of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, and I can still get it installed and running completely offline on my current desktop, and my old local profile and save data still work. I'm all for DRM-free, and I always will be, but I would still take most GFWL games over the Epic Store or Denuvo any day of the week.

As far as Alan Wake Remastered goes, yeah, I don't have the game myself, because I'm not buying it in the state that it's in, so I'm just reporting what I've heard. If you really can't even play it offline at all, I hope at the very least that problem gets fixed in an update. But still, I won't be buying it if it requires the Epic store, even if offline works.

G4WL was a terrible app, as it was very consolized on PC. And it had tons of issues - if you didn't have right version; might not update properly; could cause game not to boot; etc etc.

But at least modder could access the folder and having access to game-folders still got gamers able to mod and workaround it, if need be - to keep a game going & working, way down the line or newer OS's and systems.

But, yeah - offline profile support and offline save support for those G4WL titles was sweet. And all games should aspire for that, TBH.

Plus, G4WL much easier and modding-friendly than say Xbox for PC app's system, which is totally closed. You don't even really have access to your GameFolder files there, as those go in WindowsApps folder and that's a locked folder.

Even if say you gain access to the WindowApp folder - you still can't really mess w/ that folder....which could be a problem if you say need to mod a game down the line in the future, just to get it to run or mod properly on newer software and/or hardware.

I agree though I can't say I'm surprised. I started the thread mainly because Epic were really pushing out some surprisingly high quality games as free weekly giveaways with the mindset that at the very least, it would be a temporary bonus for DRM-Free gamers who claimed the games, downloaded and backed them up. That "The Casual Audience (tm)" have ended up demanding online services (achievements) be added (which for Epic increasingly seems to mean 'won't run without the Epic Launcher') unfortunately doesn't surprise me in the slightest these days.

I think the two primary indicators are if the game has achievements, and if it says "Requires Epic Games account" under login, even though the second indicator may not require the Epic client (The Last Campfire).

I'd also think the chances of a game being able to run without the client would depend on the developer, as in some smaller developers tend to release their stuff mainly unlocked (Devolver Digital as an example).

Read somewhere not to long ago that requiring a client-locked game isn't a rule on Epic. Developer said basically if you want my game DRM free GOG and Epic are your choices.

Thanks for trying though...
The thread has been a reference and a great help, not only for me but seen it linked in other places.

TBF, if Epic will start to push DRM one way or another, most free games had been good and I'm thankful for them, as some of them provided me hours upon hours of fun. Was good while it lasted.

I'll repeat myself: Epic doesn't do anything here. It's up to the game developers. It's the same as Steam cloud services in that sense. The downside and perhaps the reason so many people get mad is that when most developers use Steam cloud services, they can't be arsed to support any other option, which would break the game unless you have steam running, even if Steam isn't used for DRM. They might very well do the same when releasing on EGS, but again that is up to the developer.

Now, yes, Epic *might* at any point force DRM on games, but they have less reason to do so than the publishers. So if any game on EGS has DRM it would be more logical to assume the publisher is to blame and not Epic.

Also, I would like to stress again that DRM is *not* the same as a game that doesn't work without the client. The client *could* be used as a DRM measure (I am not sure if Epic offers this currently; Steam does) but it can also be used for other things (cloud saves, Steam anti-cheat, etc.).
It seems many many people here think that client = DRM and that is wrong.

Yes but the main purpose of the thread is focussed more on the practical side of what runs without any client rather than why doesn't it run. That's why I deliberately titled it "Epic Store games you can play without the Epic Launcher" and not just "Epic Store games that are DRM-Free". And why I deliberately wrote "Any game that runs 100% offline without any client, doesn't ask for login details, isn't locked to hardware and is "portable" post initial-download." and not just "has no official Epic DRM" as criteria to not waste time with "Totally Not DRM (tm)" technicalities arguments like needing online account, online anti-cheat, online achievements servers, etc, that ultimately block the game from running just the same as if they were DRM.

It looks like we're starting to see some of that with the introduction of Epic's online features freezing the game during startup because Epic having no official DRM-Free guarantee (on a store level) = Epic haven't bothered to create a GOG-style "fallback" code (the equivalent of galaxy.dll's in GOG's offline installers that gracefully handle a non-running client's inability to respond to say an achievement unlock API call) as GOG have. There was no need for that during Epic's early days but that's not the direction they're heading towards now. Whether people want to place 100% of the blame on the developer for being lazy or 50/50 blame shared with Epic, is up to them, but the list is ultimately about "that" games work, not 'why' they don't or 'who's' to blame.

Kind of ironic that those who dislike those DLLs (those that don't want to use Galaxy) are actually those for whom they have been invented :)

True though my opinion there is if there's a 'clean' build (one that hasn't had any store client features added), why not use that for offline installers rather than add code that uses a client (in a build that won't be using a client) only to then add more code on top to actually make the client integrated game work offline without crashing without a client. I still prefer the Humble version of Bioshock 1 (classic) for that reason, no Steam, no Galaxy, no anything but the game files minus all the original SecuROM DRM. Starts up lightning fast.

Probably (and that is just a guess) because GOG never received such build and GOG in most cases only work with what they get. Publisher uploaded their game with the Galaxy backend including Galaxy features and offline installers will be created from the exact same files. Also, I wonder how slow GOG Bioshock is starting for you that you actually consider it to be a problem. I don't even have an SDD and I still never noticed a delay worth mentioning. I don't want to say that your complaint isn't valid - I am just not sure if it really is that problematic.

Most recent update of The Long Dark now makes the game playable without the launcher with the -EpicPortal -auth_password=0 command line arguments, at least for me. Can someone else confirm?

Edit: correction, actually only the -auth_password=0 argument is needed.

Metro: Last Light Redux can be launched directly from executable.

The problem is: dev's and pub's think Achievements mean "online". It doesn't need to.

They can make offline Achievements, offline profiles, and offline local saving your PC.
Just make the social aspects of online part optional; that's all.

But, that's not where this market's headed - as w/ every inch we give dev's and pub's, they'll take it. And they keep doing so. Disc-based DRM. Then phone home activation checks. Limited install counts. And then, destroying the 2nd hand market...by forcing clients to run in background for certain games to work on us consumers and utilizing account-based systems.

How long until Game Pass and streaming like Netflix become the sad & unfortunate dystopian future?