Thanks for reporting this. This is important to me. Could you or someone else please confirm if this is still the case with the current version being sold?

It seems still to be the case. What I have to do to play without it crashing and without it connecting to the internet is make sure VV is denied access to the internet via my firewall and then turn off my network connection before even starting the game. This way the game loads and plays fine without accessing the internet. I seems that, like many other GOG games now, it is connected to (the optional!) Galaxy client.

Rant mode on...
Frankly, I'm not impressed with this at all and it now makes me leery to buy any new games here as they all seem to be heavily tied into this client (yes, I'm also looking at you Eisenwald: Blood of November). Those of us who choose not to use Galaxy should not have to jump through hoops to get games to work without instant crashes or allowing the game access to the internet especially as, personally speaking, I only ever play in single player mode. I can see NO reason why any game should ever try to connect anywhere if Galaxy is not installed.
Rant mode off...

Just confirmed - this is still happening.

The funny part (not "funny ha ha") is that it happens the same way whether or not you have the Galaxy client installed (I did rather extensive testing on it to try to get it to work). It might have been a legit bug a year ago when I posted about it, but there have been 11 months and a whole lot of updates in between, and it's still not fixed.

Like you, I am underwhelmed.

Thank you for testing again. It's sad that it's not fixed.
I used to trust gog to get DRM-free right but these days i find myself scanning the reviews and forums before making a decision on buying :(

Thanks for the information. It's good to know how DRM-free games actually are. As it seems to be, multiplayer is becoming a grey area. Moreover, if the game doesn't work without a call home, even if that's not technically DRM, it imposes a restriction on how you can play the game. In consequence, this should be made clear on the game page.

Thanks for looking into this :)

Anyway, what happens for me is that I've blocked victorvran.exe via my firewall (both incoming and outgoing connections) but then when I run the game I get an instant crash (see attachment). The only way to get the game to run is to remember to turn off my Network connection before trying to start the game and then it loads fine.

I am running Win 7 64 bit and use Sphinx Software Windows Firewall control which is a front end for the built in windows firewall.

Edit; In case it's relevant, I do not use Galaxy at all.

Is there seriously no update on the above post's issue for months?

Why would I want to buy this game if I can't even play it offline? I'd just go play Diablo 3.

I can reproduce this 100% of the time. You said in an earlier post that you only blocked outgoing connections have you tried with inbound connections also set to block? Also have you tried it on a machine that doesn't have Galaxy installed? You probably have but worth asking if it helps solve this annoying problem.

Thanks for the clarification.

So if I buy the game (currently on sale): I can download the installerr, unplug from the internet, installl the game and play the entire single player campaign and dlc offline without any issue?