You can play the game even without an internet connection, but for this, to work you will need to use an offline map. The players cannot access any new content if they do not have an internet connection even though the map is available locally. If you want to go online and visit other cities then the player must connect to the internet and let TWZ2 send him all the needed data that it needs. It is very important for players who live in areas where they don't have good 3G/4G network coverage support.