I read on Steam the dev was gonna release a DRM-free version for GOG. Can anyone confirm this happened?

Hi,
Chaos Reborn is available on GOG here:
https://www.gog.com/game/chaos_reborn

You can play offline battles (various solo/ hotseat co-op vs AI combinations), and the 5 offline "Realms" (story campaign) without registering the game.
If you want to play any of the online stuff (PvP), you need to register with and subsequently use Snapshot's servers (although this will continue to have no effect on your ability to play offline). This is because the servers are used for matchmaking and to calculate online battle-outcomes (presumably to prevent cheating).

There's a free demo available that has all of the tutorials and the first offline "Realm", but only on Steam. The demo is IMO representative of the game as a whole (although no PvP in the demo, which is a shame, as the PvP is really good:).

As far as I know the game is not encrypted.
You can run as many concurrent copies offline as you want; I believe that for online PvP, you need one copy of the game per player.
So, there's no Persistent/ Always-on DRM for offline play; but while it's not intended as DRM for online play, you need to be connected to Snapshot's servers for the duration of your online session.

That practice makes me think the dev isn't really entering into the spirit of DRM free.

Add to that no direct LAN play or private servers for a game being sold by a small dev.... 6 months from now they could go bust and essentially make all MP worthless for the game or just decide the servers are too expensive.

It looked interesting but I'll pass on this maybe the dev/pub will change their tune and I will reconsider later.

BTW thanks for clarifying thing the store page really should do more to make it clear in cases like this where it isn't really entirely DRM free.