[Update: In a Facebook message posted this morning, Sega says "we’ve found the problem within the game code that was stopping people playing offline and it’s been corrected by the dev team. The fix is now being tested by SEGA QA to ensure it is working properly and we’ll let you know when it will be implemented via our social channels ASAP. We’ve looked into the DRM complaints and can confirm this was not the cause of the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience any of the bugs may have caused players of the PC version at launch and would like to reassure them again, that as with this particular bug, we are on the case and working on fixes so everyone can have an uninterrupted and enjoyable experience playing Sonic Mania both online and offline."]

Original Story

I had high hopes of returning to Sonic Mania and slapping an Ars Approved sticker on my early-August review once its PC version launched. I figured, by then, the console editions would have received patches to a few noticeable glitches and a tidy PC port would seal the deal on an easy game recommendation.

Then I tried loading the Windows version of Sonic Mania while my Steam account was offline. That's when Sonic Mania informed me, in no uncertain terms, that "Steam user must be logged in to play this game."

Turns out, Sega has applied the much-maligned Denuvo copy-protection system to Sonic Mania's PC version—and this Denuvo implementation won't unlock the game for players so long as Steam is operating in "offline mode." Until the game receives an update, Sonic Mania fans hoping to play the PC version in an offline capacity are out of luck. (Your backup option, should you want to do something like board a plane, is to boot the game while connected to Wi-Fi, then disconnect from the Internet and leave the game running in the background until you're ready to play. It's not necessarily an ideal workaround.)

"Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline, and we're investigating reports on that," an account named "Sega Dev" wrote on the game's Steam news page shortly after its Tuesday launch.

Whether any fix to its online-authentication issue takes hours, days, or weeks is unclear at this point. But the same news post had less good news for anybody looking for a change of heart on Denuvo. The post simply described the game's Steam store page's failure to mention that Denuvo was a requirement as an "error." "We're fixing that now," the game's representative wrote, and sure enough, Sonic Mania's Steam store page now explicitly mentions Denuvo. (That same store page made no mention of Denuvo when the Steam version rose to the top of Steam's pre-sale charts throughout August.)

Weirdly, official Sonic the Hedgehog PR manager Aaron Webber asked fans to directly complain to Sega about Mania's use of Denuvo: "Please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you're having at the link above. Make your voices heard." We can't recall a similar internal dig at DRM ever coming from an affected game's staffers.

As for Mania's PC port: the glitches I noticed after playing the console versions appear to have been fixed, and the result is a remarkably smooth experience (at least, if you're online for now). In a few hours of testing, I noticed a grand total of three one-frame hitches in animation, which may hint to a minor memory leak—and the fact that I noticed exactly three hitches is a testament to how otherwise impeccably Sonic Mania runs on Windows. Here's to hoping legitimate offline PC players will get a shot at such play as well, without having to dig around for a probably-coming-soon Denuvo crack.