Edge computing on video games
Do you remember turning on your old handheld console? The only thing between you and the final boss was time, and the time was yours. No connection check, no shop in the corner, no update before you could press start. The game was there, and it worked.
What is edge computing
Edge computing is the name computer science gave to the opposite of cloud computing. Instead of trusting a remote server with the work, you keep it close: your device runs the game and stores the progress. The cloud can still hold a backup, but it is the copy, never the source of truth.
It is a technical idea, but in games it is also a design idea: the game lives where you are, not somewhere you have to reach.
The start menu that phones home
Somewhere along the way the start menu stopped being a start menu. Now you open a game you paid for and, before you play, it calls home: it looks for a new item to sell you, a shop that rotates every week, a counter of daily rewards. It may look stunning, with impeccable graphics and a legendary aesthetic, and it may talk about collecting, but the experience is poorer as a game, because part of it was built to sell instead of to be played.
And sometimes it is worse: the game simply does not run offline. It needs a server to authenticate you, to load the next screen, to save your progress. You bought it, but you did not really own it, you rented access.
When the servers go
This is not hypothetical. Google Stadia ran games in the cloud, and when it shut down in 2023 the titles people had bought there stopped being playable. The Crew, a racing game from 2014, had its servers switched off in 2024 and became unplayable, even the parts that felt single-player. Out of cases like these grew Stop Killing Games, a movement asking that a game stay playable after the company stops supporting it.
When the game and your progress live on a server, you do not own them. When the server disappears, the game goes with it, and so do the hours you put into it.
What we do
That is why our games are offline first. Your progress is stored on your device, not on ours, and the game keeps working with no connection. It is also why they are open source: even if we disappear, you keep the game, and anyone can keep it running.
If one day a game of ours needs the network for something real, playing with another person, we would rather start with a peer-to-peer mechanic, a QR code and a local link, and leave the server as the last resort instead of the default.
Why it matters
A game that runs on your device is a game you keep. Servers shut down, subscriptions expire and studios close, and the games that depend on them disappear with them. Offline play is not a feature we bolt on at the end; it is what keeps a game playable years after we ship it.