Microsoft has opened up the Windows 10 store to offer something for gamers that used to be standard fare back in the day: the ability to play games offline. I know, I know… we actually have to report on the feature of offline mode being included for games during this generation. What has gaming come to?

DSO Gaming picked up the news from over on the official Xbox support site, where they announced that select Windows 10 games will allow you to play them offline. However, there’s a caveat: you have to be online first in order to activate offline mode.

DSO simplifies the steps down from what’s featured on the support site, giving gamers an easy-to-follow five step process. You can follow the guide below in order to access offline mode for some games.

1.  Make sure that you’re online.
2. Check that your device has the latest Windows updates: Go to Start > Settings > Update & security > Windows Update and see if any relevant updates are available.
3. Open the Store. You’ll be prompted to sign in if you haven’t already.
4. Select the Me icon (this is your profile picture).
5. Select Settings, and then under Offline Permissions, make sure that the toggle is set to On.”

So in order to access your games offline, you first have to be online. That’s going to be real special when the power gets knocked out and your ISP is delayed when it comes to getting your service back up.

Nevertheless, they mention on the support site that if you have multiple devices running Windows 10 you’ll need to set a single device as a designated offline device in order to access your games offline.

But you’re not done yet!

Before being able to access your games in offline mode, you first have to set your games up to run in offline mode while you’re online. To do this you’ll need to be signed into Xbox Live and then boot up the game on the device designated as the offline device and then you’ll need to sign into your Xbox Live account to signify that the game can be played offline.

Hey, do you remember back in the day you would put a game in the console and then turn it on and then you could play at any time? Do you remember also when you could put in a CD-ROM and install a game and then double click the executable and play the game you paid for? Do you remember those days? I miss those days.

While Valve and CD Projekt Red have made services like Steam and GOG.com easy to navigate and easy to use, Microsoft has gone in the complete opposite direction with Windows 10. There’s a troubleshooting guide available on the support site that you can check out in case you’re having trouble accessing your games offline.