The bug preventing GTA 5 from being playable offline has been fixed

(Image credit: Rockstar)

When the Rockstar Games Launcher appeared earlier this week the Steam version of Grand Theft Auto 5 suddenly stopped being playable in offline mode. Rockstar were quick to announce that this was a bug, and they hadn't made any changes to GTA 5's DRM.

The bug has now been fixed, and there's a ticket for it on Rockstar's support site. Here's the full text of it.

Question: Why can’t I set GTAV for PC to Offline Mode now that I have updated to the Rockstar Games Launcher?

Answer: In order to Play GTAV in Offline Mode, players will need to:
Run the Rockstar Games Launcher and update it to the latest version
Sign in to the Rockstar Games Launcher
Update GTAV to the latest version
Launch GTAV via the Rockstar Games Launcher while online

So there you go. You'll need to be online to launch it the first time, but after that you should be able to play in offline mode again.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.