You're wrong about this. My shitty internet goes down every now and then, and trying to launch any Denuvo game that I haven't played for a while will result in the same error message requesting to go online.
An example I made a few days ago via firewall blocking to illustrate this fact. All games I already had installed and had played on this machine, but hadn't played for some time. The error message is identical across all Denuvo games from all publishers. The 'Next' button directs you to a support site presumably run by Denuvo, since all Denuvo games seem to have them, no matter the publisher.
https://support.codefusion.technology/deusex/
https://support.codefusion.technology/pes2017/
https://support.codefusion.technology/justcause3/
https://support.codefusion.technology/doom/
https://support.codefusion.technology/totalwar/
https://support.codefusion.technology/rotr54675345/
And so on. The window for reactivation seems to be about a week, incidentally. It also doesn't try to activate every time you launch the game. There's a set interval in play and it isn't reset on every launch. It checks to a set schedule.
I can appreciate people not knowing about this "feature," as most people are constantly connected to the internet these days. But it very much does exist, and raises questions about what happens to Denuvo games long-term if the servers they want to hit are no longer there at some point in the future. It would need to be patched out.