How we test games in airplane mode

Before any game lands in our catalogue, it goes through the airplane mode test. It's not glamorous, but it's the whole point of this site. We install the game, load it once with a connection, then flip airplane mode on and see what breaks.

A lot breaks, honestly. Some games throw an error screen. Others load fine but lock away half their content until you reconnect. A few silently refuse to save. Those all get rejected no matter how good the gameplay is.

We also test across a couple of older phones, because a game that runs great on a new flagship isn't much use if it stutters on a three-year-old device. Marta keeps a small collection of test phones for exactly this.

Only after a game survives all of that do we start writing about how it actually plays. The review you read is the fun part; the airplane mode test is the reason you can trust it.