According to a user on the Steam forums the following is how it currently works;

"1) If you’ve never linked your Steam and Epic accounts, you can launch and play Tomb Raider games through Steam just as you always could.

2) If you have previously linked your Steam and Epic accounts, you will get a web browser prompt upon launching any of the three games, asking you to permit Epic access to your online game data.

3) If you click cancel on this prompt, you will not be able to reach the title screen of any of the games. But you can unlink your Steam account via your Epic account settings. If you do so, you’ll be able to launch and play the Tomb Raider trilogy just as if you’d never linked accounts in the first place.

In summary, the issue which is mentioned everywhere only happens to people who:
1) have linked their Steam and Epic accounts,
2) have clicked "Cancel" when the pop-up asking for permissions to share data with Epic appears upon launching the game.
The solution consists in unlinking the accounts. No need to edit your HOSTS file."

So it seems that it's only always online DRM if you have an Epic account linked, still awful but I think there's a good chance it could come here DRM free with the multiplayer gutted out and It shouldn't affect anything with the singleplayer here.

What I was trying to say is that I hope that someone doesn't make an "oopsie" and submit a TR GOTY update to GOG that happens to have online-only DRM in it. I have heard conflicting reports about what works and what doesn't in the new update, but the point that I was trying to make is that GOG needs to probably pay attention to any incoming TR GOTY updates and give them extra scrutiny.

Thanks for sharing this info it is quite helpful.

Interesting update and info here.

Regardless, even if Accounts are LINKED b/t Steam and Epic, it should be up to ME if I want to utilize EOS on it or not; and it should NOT require always-online for a single-player game.

If I say "Cancel" - especially on a Steam version, GOG version, UPlay version, etc - it should just skip EOS...and we should be good to go.

And while I'm at it, Shenmue 3 should work while offline period; don't care if it's EGS version or Steam; they don't work in offline mode. And that's a Single-player game!

Game installs (and its DLC's/Expansions), Local Saving of the game, Achievements, progression, and all of that cool stuff should be built into the engine & game itself and that stuff should work even when I'm offline.

Problem for Steam is: Steam often has forced updates. So, if say that old version is tied to your Libraries that Steam recognizes, how are you going to get around the update?

You're going to need to likely NEVER go online w/ Steam again - and who is going to do that, when downloads for your Steam games are forced there?

If the old-version's not protected by CEG, Denuvo, Steamworks, and/or any other DRM crap & it say just works without Steam (like say some Indie games, DOSBox games, older titles, etc) - you could say move the game-folder to a location that isn't linked to your Steam Library folder - and you'd be good to go.

With GOG Galaxy - yeah, as least they have the option to tick the box for "Don't Update This Game." It just won't do it, PERIOD. This is great to keep old version, versions w/ mods (in case updates come later and break the mod); updates push system requirements up; and/or whatever non-sense you think of that can get in the way of you running your game.

The day GOG starts forcing updates like Steam does - yeah, that'll be worrisome.

The issue with Tomb Raider 2013 is more complex.

Actually the game will not run if :

- Accounts are linked (probably a bug)
- The computer is offline
- Epic servers are unreacheable for any resons, like the user rightefully blocked them because to avoid epic spy on the system.

This is because the EOS ALWAYS try to call home at the start and exchange data, regardless if the user have initiated the multiplayer part.

On top of that, EOS uses 100% of one logical core of the CPU constantly, and it's not good. Probably a bad implementation of EOS or something else happening, i don't know. But if you block epic servers the total CPU usage ramp up, it goes to 63% on my system, so it's definetely EOS trying to do something.

Oh, and they misinformed about reverting the patch for the three games. Only Rise of the Tomb Raider has been reverted, Tomb Raider 2013 don't.

There's an even better way to avoid updates being pushed on you - don't use Galaxy!

Fair enough examples of issues, but I think my point is more that GOG are still committed to DRM free, even if there are glitches and flaws they need to work out or even sometimes put on the back burner. The idea they would add an online Epic client check to a game they sell at this moment in time is preposterous.

Mafia 2 still don't have DEmake version here and Mafia 3 is 2016 one, not updated to DEmake either. Hopefully TR9 stays that way too.