What 'offline' should actually mean

'Works offline' gets thrown around loosely on app stores. On this site it means something specific, so here's our checklist.

A truly offline game runs fully in airplane mode after install: no login wall, no progression that syncs to a server, no feature locked behind a connection. We test each one this way.

Some games are 'offline-ish' — the core plays offline but half the content is gated. We still cover those, but we flag it clearly in the review so nobody gets surprised.

Local saves are the other half. If your progress lives only on a distant server, one bad update can wipe weeks of play. We note where saves are stored whenever we can tell.

It sounds fussy, but when you game on a phone with no signal, these details are the whole point.