The Best Games That Can Be Played Fully Offline (If You’re Planning To Go Off-Grid)

Sometimes you’ll need to disconnect – whether it’s for a road trip, a long flight, or even a more extreme situation where you’re completely off the grid. It can be worrying to think about being without connection, especially when entertainment is as important as essentials like water. Luckily, many great games only need a smartphone or a portable device like the Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch to play.

Many gamers appreciate being able to play games without an internet connection, and with good reason. While online games are now common, games used to be primarily played offline. Thankfully, offline games are still around and can be just as engaging, offering plenty of depth, replay value, and fun – these five games are excellent examples of that.

Stardew Valley

Hundreds of hours of farming, relationships, and exploration
Seasonal cycles create natural gameplay variety
No internet required
Available on mobile devices

Stardew Valley is a great game to play when you want to disconnect and relax. It’s a cozy life simulation that’s designed to keep you engaged for a long time. With changing seasons, there’s always something new to do – you can fish, mine, fight monsters, farm, cook, and build relationships with the townspeople, much like in The Sims. It’s easy to spend over 100 hours playing without repeating yourself, and the best part is, you don’t need an internet connection to enjoy it.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection / Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Value-per-package: massive content libraries that support multiple playthroughs
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection has two 30+ hour campaigns with extensive endgames and multiple DLCs
Halo: The Master Chief Collection combines six entries of the most influential FPS in modern gaming history in one package
Both collections offer offline local co-op multiplayer

Though they seem different, both of these game collections represent the pinnacle of shooter games. Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is available on consoles and includes two fantastic campaigns – Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Both are incredibly replayable thanks to a huge variety of randomly generated weapons, multiple playable characters with unique abilities, and plenty of challenging endgame content. While the game’s humor isn’t for everyone, the solid shooting and addictive loot system make it worth playing through multiple times, including all the extra downloadable content.

The Halo: The Master Chief Collection brings together all six main Halo games, starting with the groundbreaking Halo: Combat Evolved and continuing through Halo 4. It’s a massive collection offering hundreds of hours of classic, story-driven sci-fi shooting action in a single, convenient package.

You and a friend can play both Borderlands: The Handsome Collection and Halo: The Master Chief Collection together on the same screen – you don’t have to switch players!

Elden Ring

FromSoftware’s most customizable and accessible entry point
Exploration-driven progression allows for player-directed difficulty and length
100+ hour single-player open-world RPG with another 50+ hour DLC
Over 300 potential boss encounters

While any of the Souls games would be a great fit, Elden Ring stands out because it brilliantly takes FromSoftware’s signature gameplay and expands it into a vast, open world. This world is beautifully designed to encourage exploration, offering rewarding discoveries around every corner – powerful weapons, hidden secrets, and challenging bosses are all waiting to be found, without relying on pointless collectibles or intrusive quest markers. With multiple ways to finish the game, tons of different character builds, and a substantial expansion that rivals many full games, Elden Ring offers an experience you can enjoy for years.

So, Elden Ring does have online stuff like leaving messages for other players and teaming up for co-op, which is cool. But honestly, if your internet’s down, you won’t miss out on any of the important parts of the game. You can still totally finish it offline!

Baldur’s Gate 3

75-100+ hours for a single playthrough
Giant, branching narratives with multiple meaningful choices
Multiple difficulty options that modify the entire game
Origin characters that enable radically different playthroughs

Whether you’re playing online or solo, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the definitive role-playing game for anyone who loves a rich story where your decisions truly matter. With 12 character classes, 46 specializations, countless storylines, hundreds of spells and weapons, and both custom-made and pre-designed characters, you could easily lose yourself in this game for over 300 hours. It’s a game that makes both successes and failures feel impactful, and is full of hidden secrets and surprising possibilities. Plus, you can enjoy the entire experience completely offline.

Balatro

Roguelike deck-builder with poker mechanics perfect for short or long sessions
Simple enough for beginners, with endless strategic depth and build variety
Hypnotic soundtrack and flawless UI/UX
No online features and available on mobile

Balatro is a uniquely enjoyable game – it’s just as fun for a quick ten-minute play as it is for a long, six-hour session. Like classic games such as Tetris, it’s incredibly addictive and makes you want to play ‘just one more run’. What seems like a simple poker game quickly becomes surprisingly complex as you unlock new jokers and card decks, and discover clever ways to turn ordinary hands into massive scores. Having Balatro as an offline game is a real asset, because it’s perfect for both short breaks and extended gaming sessions.

Unplugged Shouldn’t Mean Uncomfortable

Any of these six games will keep gamers entertained even without an internet connection, whether they’re on a long trip or imagining a survival situation. They offer a wide variety of stories, genres, and ways to play, proving that offline gaming can be just as enjoyable as online experiences.

2025-12-01 20:37