Is Hitman (2016) Online-only game?

If you are on the fence in purchasing this game because it is "online-only", you might want to read this guide first.

Hitman is not really an online-only game, you can basically play the game offline. However, there are components that do not work when you play offline namely,

Contracts

Leaderboards

Limited-Time Targets (not yet implemented)

Basically, the online-only components of the game are not "essential" to playing the game. They are usually add-ons and score recording. These specific features require online connection. For most of the game, the online-only restriction is not DRM, per se.

HOWEVER, when you are playing the game while being connected to the Internet, you will lose all your progress if (1) your Internet connection disconnects, (2) the game needs update, as what happened during the weekend where players lost much of their progress because of the update, and (3) lost contact with Steam.

Therefore it always advised to save your progress every now and then.

WITH THAT SAID, Hitman treats the offline and online games as separate entities. Meaning, if you want to play the game offline, you can do so, however, aside from extra features with an online gameplay, you cannot use the offline saves to your online session, and vice versa. If you start the game offline, you will finish it offline. If you start the game online, you must finish it online, and you cannot play your online session without connecting to the Internet.

This is persistent, not a "handshake" connection. Meaning, you always have to have an active Internet connection using moderate bandwidth. A good example of comparison is SimCity (2013) where you can play the game off 3G connection because it only needs a handshake to the server, compared to Hitman where you need to have persistent connection.

ALSO, the Challenges you completed do not count in your achievement list. Save syncing is also bug-ridden as of this moment. There are no ways to save your "online" sessions locally, you have to put your faith in Square Enix. If their servers fail, down your saves with it.