What is the big deal, of course its online only, GT7 was too, this is a live service game.
In the future if they are closing servers I am sure they will patch it to play offline.
Such drama over nothing.
Not over nothing.
How many games have been patched when the servers go down? Not many. You can probably count them on one hand. We get new cases of games going offline or the dlc not available or not playable every month.
Do you really think Polyphony is going to patch that shit? I doubt it. They want you to forget all about past versions and buy their new game.
For example Little big planet a game series where the servers had millions of user created content. Now gone as Sony didn't want to keep the server up. Bean counters said, close it. Same happened to Drive Club, GT5, GT6, and countless other titles. I even seen it with an indie game like sound shapes. There was dlc that expanded the game. Now that the user created content server is down , no more dlc that people payed for. Its crazy.
Its even worse for single player games.
When This is no longer feasible due to bean counters see only a few thousand playing, in a few years, they will shut the servers down. You will not be able to play the game. A game like borderlands you can still play, as online co-op is peer to peer, not locked behind servers.
I have no problem with the model for multiplayer only games, but single player portions should be available offline. I get an hour at most for gaming each night (sometimes more, if i escape into the bathroom, thank you switch and steam deck!!!) That being said, I don't get to play everything at launch. I also wait for sales. I have well over a 1000 games when you combine switch, ps4/5, and steam going back decades. Plus older and retro consoles, and handhelds will bring that up even more. I can play nes, ps1 and ps3 games from long ago.
Hell I can play a game like gt4 and use old cars that aren't in the new games.
One of my favorite Sim-light racing game is Need For Speed Shift 1 and 2. I can play both of them offline as back then single player wasn't tied to online. The online leaderboards and challenges from opponents ghosts is gone, but the base game is still there.