This is probably a crazy question. Is it possible to play D2R without going through Battlenet? I’m playing on a laptop and do not play multiplayer games. Launching the game takes what seems like forever.
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Nope, D2R has DRM that requires Bnet unfortunately.
When you first purchase D2R you will need to log in with Bnet (requires internet connection) to “verify” that you own the game, then you can start playing offline single player without an internet connection for up to 30 days.
After those 30 days have passed then you will need to log in to Bnet again to get a verification token to play another 30 days without internet, repeat as needed.
You can launch D2R directly from the executable (D2R.exe located in your installation folder) which allows you to bypass the Bnet launcher, you’ll still need a valid token to play though.
I wish it was like original D2 where it wasn’t locked down with DRM but alas this is how it goes with modern Blizz games.
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Yes.
You can play most of the time offline without being connected to battle.net, BUT…
– you have to be disconnected from the internet, or have your connection to battle.net blocked via firewall. (I prefer to disconnect from the internet while I’m playing.)
– you still have to connect to battle.net once every 30 days in order to refresh your authentication credential.
Just make a short-cut to the D2R.exe file and place it on your desktop to start the game.
This bypasses the battle.net launcher. (after you do something about your internet connection.)
Thanks for the replies and info. I was just annoyed because I’m playing on a laptop and it seems to take a long time to launch the game. I don’t plan on playing online and thought the game might launch faster if I didn’t also have to launch Battle.net.
Here’s a reddit post of a like minded individual that mostly talks about loading times but also about how to launch without it connecting to BNet. This doesn’t supersede anything other posters have mentioned about authentication every 30 days but it might be what you are looking for: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/qey05y/d2r_single_player_tips_to_improve_your_load_times/
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i just found this meme for you
it’s too early in the morning for me and i can’t post pictures properly… but god damn… help please someone that knows better… this is the link…
oh lol then it just works what is this world.
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Spot on! I would generally add games that can be soloed, even if multiplayer is a big part of them, to the same category.
Although that meme is a bit off, I’d think that Xi would love to add an online requirement to absolutely everything.
Well its the last piece of money im ever giving this company. I bought the original probably around 5 times cause i suck at keeping a disc but this is crazy.I mostly bought it so that in case my internet went down and i cant play POE 2 or 1, i would have something to fall back on. Never getting another dollar out of me and most my friends feel the same way. So not if but when you go under does that mean my game goes with you too. Id like a refund since this wasnt made clear in the description. the running joke in poe is that the only people that play a diablo game is people with an iq below 80. F k blizzard
I am not sure what your complaint is about. You can play the game without access to the internet (you simply need to play offline characters). The issues are when you want the game to not attempt to connect to battlenet when opening, for example for privacy reasons. You need it to connect occasionally to keep running, if I understand it correctly.
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May take is the thread necromancer Quantum3113 wants D2:R to serve as offline entertainment when their unreliable internet connection goes down and can’t play PoE/PoE2. However since they only run the game when their internet goes down, they get prompted with the DRM wall.
I guess they have been living under a rock for the past two decades, and aren’t aware that DRM has become ever more omnipresent in games.
Here’s my suggestion, Quantum3113… Get a more reliable internet service provider.
Alternatively, he could simply do a short phone sharing connection to validate the DRM, then cut the connection and be able to play without any further issues. This shouldn’t tax his phone data significantly.
Unless there’s an update that needs to come through, which if they don’t load the game unless the internet is down is a very real possibility. Should only be a couple hundred megabytes at most, as there has been very few “meat and potatoes” updates for the game for about 3 years now.
I’m not a big fan of internet connectivity for single player offline games but does the internet connection upload Offline single player saved games to Blizzard servers if a players computer is broken, so they won’t lose everything?
They are stored locally on your computer, you can always back them up after you done playing. Also, if your SSD won’t break you won’t lose anything.
No, offline characters are not stored on or transferred by Blizzards servers at any time. They are saved locally on your computers storage drive, which by default is c:\Users\UserFolder\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\
You can however manually copy the save files to the same folder path on a different computer with a copy of the game installed, and you should be able to play it.
Ah - so then the online aspect is just a DRM thing by Blizzard. Well, it’s not uncommon for most games anymore I guess.
Yeah - I really should back up my games to thumb drives more regularly. I’ve had both HDDs & SDDs fail before in systems. Real world RNG/luck!
You can absolute play offline single player. I do it on flights all the time on my nintendo switch.
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That may geographically not be an option.
Anyway, not an issue anyway since as estabilished your internet only needs to work once a month for d2r to work 
I believe the issue with Quantum3113 is when their internet goes down, they can’t fire up D2:R to pass the downtime because of the 30 day DRM grace period.
That being said, Quantum3113 could be proactive and avoid the issue by spending a minute or two simply signing in the game once every couple of weeks to reset the 30 day timer when their internet is working, that way when the internet goes down, they’ll be covered for two weeks to a month.
I have a friend that lives out in the sticks, and yes, he’s had internet outages that have lasted a couple of weeks. So yes, I understand the headaches that come from it.
I’ve read that one can also change the date/time on the system back to ~1 year ago and get it working offline, but I’m not 100% positive on this.
I’m sure there are also alternative ways that can’t be mentioned in this forum to get the game to work offline forever