Many online games are discontinued every year, including both new games that have been launched recently, and long-running games that carry a large number of players' memories. With the servers shutting down, the gaming world has also come to an end, which has led many to wonder if an offline version can be launched to preserve the game.
Recently, an offline version of "NieR: Reincarnation" made by fans has triggered a fierce debate on the Internet about "game preservation and infringement." This unofficial revival project was released by player Altret on April 13. He built a private server to make this service-based RPG game that has ceased operation since April 2024 partially playable for the first time. The problem, however, is that none of this was approved by SE.
Many fans welcomed the plan, but there were also many voices, especially in Japan, that condemned the plan as infringing on SE's copyright and disrespecting the original creators of the game. In response to the argument that "if developers don't want unofficial versions to appear, why not release offline versions themselves?" several Japanese developers shared their technical insights and personal experiences on this issue.
Japanese game developer Satoshi Tatsumi pointed out that changing an online game to an offline version is far from as simple as "removing the server". Core mechanisms including progress management, prop system, enemy behavior, reward calculation, etc. all rely on server operation. Migrating to local will cause new problems such as archive tampering and data synchronization errors. At the same time, the game, which was originally designed for an online environment, also needed to be completely redone in terms of pace, difficulty, and reward structure. He emphasized that "technically it can run" and "whether it is fun as a game" are two different things. In many cases, going offline will lead to a broken experience or even require almost a redo of the entire system.
He said: "Making an offline version technically feasible and making it a fun game are two different things. The game will probably end up being playable but not fun, or it will just fail outright."
Programmer keigame5 also shared his own experience. He said that when the company proposed the idea of producing an offline version after the server was shut down, the team conducted a workload assessment and ultimately found that the development cost was equivalent to making a new game, and may even be more troublesome than building it from scratch. Therefore, this plan is often difficult to implement in actual development.
