10 Hugely Influential Video Games (That Made Everything Worse)
5. Diablo III - Always Online DRM
Diablo III made waves back in 2013, mostly for its poorly implemented always-on Digital Rights Management concept. SimCity 2013 also had a similarly bad time with it, too.
Once ironed out, it's not an inherently evil concept. It's more to maintain that players are playing legitimate copies of games in an aide to crackdown on piracy, after all.
It's when it started being incorporated in games that didn't need it, that's when it got the real grief. Step up, Square Enix, as you are champions of this nonsense.
Hitman's 2016 world and progression system is vast, with unlockables being tied to both story and character level progression. So to log in and play a bit when your internet's down, only to find that your progression is tied to always-on DRM was absolute hogwash.
Ubisoft are guilty too, meaning you can't play any Ghost Recon: Wildlands with spotty internet, lest you be kicked out of your solo adventures repeatedly.
Tying always-on DRM to single player feels like punishment, as if the insistence on multiplayer overrules wanting to play by yourself. The added fear of losing everything if your internet is down isn't fun, either.