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The upcoming Diablo III will require that players stay connected to the internet, even for single player, due to new Battle.net and auction house features. Reacting to the news, fans expressed frustration over the design decision, stating that the game won’t be playable for those without a stable internet connection and that pirates will simply crack the restriction anyway.

In response to the complaints, Blizzard’s online technologies Robert Bridenbecker explained the decision to require a constant connection. Having an offline mode would mean “introducing a separate user flow, a separate path that players are going to go down. And, at the end of the day, how many people are going to want to do that? It then becomes a matter of having to find a way to deal with those offline players when they suddenly want to go online. Do they then have to leave everything behind? We said we don’t want to look at that [in Diablo III]. Let’s just keep everything clean.” He also stated that preventing piracy wasn’t a major consideration for this decision.

No release date has been announced.

Source: 1UP