The Story of My Life and Dungeon Quest (both getting delisted from Steam, likely in ~1 week) can be played without Steam. No tricks needed.

Store links:
[The Story of My Life] https://store.steampowered.com/app/917610/The_Story_of_My_Life/
[Dungeon Quest] https://store.steampowered.com/app/849920/Dungeon_Quest/

Both are only published for Windows, but The Story of My Life also comes with a file called TheStoryofMyLife.sh that can be used as an executable on Linux (also runs without Steam).

Downloaded the games through Steam on Ubuntu 20.04, did a first time setup using Proton, then tested The Story of My Life in both an Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10 virtual machines, and Dungeon Quest in a Windows 10 virtual machine.

Okay, we're all updated again.

Mutiny!! (+18 game) can be played without Steam. No tricks needed. The uncensor patch can also be used outside of Steam.

Store link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/669050/Mutiny/

The game is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

I downloaded the Linux version, but as pretty much all Ren'Py games, the Linux version also comes with a Windows executable, and vice-versa. Both the the Linux and Windows executables worked in virtual machines that never had Steam installed. Also did a first time setup beforehand.

Also, a tip:
if you can't find how to run files with special symbols from Linux's terminal, you may need to rename a few files to remove the "!!" (without quotation marks).
These files are:
~/Mutiny!!/Mutiny!!.sh
~/Mutiny!!/Mutiny!!.py
~/Mutiny!!/lib/linux-i686/Mutiny!! (if you're in a x32 distro)
~/Mutiny!!/lib/linux-x86_64/Mutiny!! (if you're in a x64 distro))

Learn Japanese To Survive! Kanji Combat can be played without Steam by either launching the executable (Windows-specific method) or launching a HTML file (seems to work on pretty much any OS). No tricks needed.

The Windows executable is the KanjiCombat.exe file in the directory ~/Learn Japanese To Survive! Kanji Combat
The file that lets you launch the game on pretty much any OS is the index.html in the directory ~/Learn Japanese To Survive! Kanji Combat/www

Store link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/759440/Learn_Japanese_To_Survive_Kanji_Combat/

Tested the Windows executable on a Windows 10 virtual machine that never had Steam installed.
Tested the HTML file in my main Linux install (has Steam installed), both virtual machines I have (Ubuntu 20.04 & Windows 10, neither ever had Steam installed) and in my Android phone (this last one is weird to make the game run, but it's possible).

Also, just like in Hiragana Battle, if you use Firefox, you need to toggle a setting in it for the game to work. For that, put about:config in the link field and open it, search for "privacy.file_unique_origin" and set it to "false".

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Sougetsu Ninja: Kikyou (+18 game, getting delisted in a few days) works without Steam, no tricks needed.

Tested in a Windows 10 virtual machine that never had Steam installed, as well as in my main Linux install using Wine with its default folder instead of Proton's.

A word of warning and an advice:
The devs are removing the game because apparently a recent Windows update breaks the game and they don't know how to fix it (probably my virtual machine's Windows didn't update yet, thus it still works). If the game no longer runs to someone, there could be a few workarounds, like using Wine, virtual machines with either older Windows 10 builds or Windows 7, and downgrading your Windows' build version.

Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1091040/Sougetsu_Ninja_Kikyou/

Nubarron - The Adventure of an unlucky Gnome runs fine without the client out of the box.

The game is also currently free on Steam.

Get it here: store.steampowered.com/app/414160/Nubarron_The_adventure_of_an_unlucky_gnome/

Hey is resident evil 7 drm free? Just curious :)

Hentai Shooter 2 World Tour: No tricks needed. The decensor DLC works as well.

Hentai Shooter 3D: No tricks needed. The decensor DLC works as well.

Hentai Shooter 3D Christmas Party: No tricks needed. The decensor DLC works as well.

Kandidatos: Needs to place a steam_appid.txt file with the game's ID (1395560) inside in the executable's folder.

Kandidatos Kart: Needs to place a steam_appid.txt file with the game's ID (1415140) inside in the executable's folder.

WhiteLily 1：丽丽公主:
-Base game: I couldn't get the .exe file to work (said it's a Steam link in every test), but I could open the game with the file \Princess Lili\www\index.html (which should work in any OS/browser that supports html files).
-DLC: Both the files \Princess Lili\Mayo's Grace\《丽丽公主》初版\《丽丽公主》初版.exe and \Princess Lili\Mayo's Grace\《丽丽公主》初版\www\index.html can launch the game. No tricks needed.

Second Dimension RetroPak Vol. 1: No tricks needed. Also comes with NES ROMs (rename the .dat files in \Second Dimension RetroPak Vol. 1\bin\dat to .nes).

Seek Girl: Needs to place a steam_appid.txt file with the game's ID (998930) inside in the executable's folder. Also has a decensor patch available outside of Steam.

Star Island: No tricks needed.

WINDSHIFT: Needs to place a steam_appid.txt file with the game's ID (879260) inside in the executable's folder. Also there's a chance it's getting delisted soon.

All games downloaded through Linux and were tested in a Windows 10 virtual machine that never had Steam installed.

Amazing topic.
Big thanks to everyone involved in that steam wiki :) I bookmarked the site for the later use ;)
Is there something that can be done considering Mortal Kombat XL? I've tried playing this without steam running, and it doesn't launch (no errors, no messages). The game has steam_api64.dll and steam_appid.txt in the directory of the exe. Without steam_api64.dll, it gives the error about missing file.

There are some solutions where you can leave Steam files as they are, but add few files to fool those dependencies to think that Steam client is present even though it's not.

Quite obviously those are not DRM-free games then, and not something that this thread tries to cover, and also bypassing active DRM installments can be seen as an act of piracy and for that reason I am not giving any more advice on that.

All I can say is that there are some files that can make some games work that are not DRM-free. I have tried it with some games that I own as DRM'd versions, so I know it works with some games, but I can also speak from personal experience that it doesn't work with every game.

And for clarification, I am not talking about cracked exe files, which can also work with some games, but are a completely different thing.

The best solution is to buy only games from that no-DRM list and hope that they haven't changed anything since they were added to that list.

I would not exactly call this as an "act of piracy". I own the original games on steam and for many of them I even have a second copy purchased on gog.
I'm interested in playing fighting games like MKX or KI (2013) locally only and offline (without steam running in the background). If you know some tools that can help me with this, share this info here or in the PM. So far I've tried steamless and goldberg emulator - both didn't work.

Maybe its even not right place but I'm just so curious, will you help me to understand this subject ?

for example, Ghostrunner, published by 505 Games

it's drm free on epic games store and it's drm-ed on steam.

for me, looking to buy drm-free games why should i buy from steam ? And most important why drm-free on egs unlike steam? Which part i'm missing ? Isn't EGS drm store just like Steam ?


note: I'm not a native speaker of english, sorry if i did mistake.

The reason to buy from Steam is because it has a lot of games that are not available on GOG and EGS.

As for your other question, no, the DRM on Steam and EGS is not the same. Hence, why some games on EGS behave differently to the Steam versions.

now it's interesting. I know developers/publishers can use steam's drm if they publish their game with drm. in this example, why 505 games publish their game with drm on steam unlike egs. is this some kind of tactic or something idk. EGS wants to be rival for steam and if they will continue publish some AAA titles with drm free unlike steam, i'm okay with this. EGS will earn a new customer because earning money isn't easy and i dont wanna lose my games in future if stores shuts down.

Symploké: Legend of Gustavo Bueno (Chapter 1)
Symploké: Legend of Gustavo Bueno (Chapter 2)
Symploké: Legend of Gustavo Bueno (Chapter 3)

are DRM-free.

Tested on Windows 10.