Just installed this to give it a shot.
Whenever I try to load the game, it keeps trying to ask for internet access (my firewall blocks it) &/or to open a port.

wth?

It's a single player game, why does it want internet access?

Anyone else had this?

Yes

This thread is succinct and informative.

Hmm, weird.
Guess I'll just kill internet any time I load up the game.

Maybe it is for people who understand the network jargon in it. For me it is not informative at all because I have no idea what that network jargon means.

I have the same question as the OP. After reading all of this thread and all of the thread in the link referred to above, I still don't know the answer.

Why does this game try to connect to the Internet? What is the answer to that question in simple language?

It's likely because of some Unity thing that the devs didn't 100% account for where Unity tries to connect different parts of itself using network connections. It's effectively trying to connect your PC to itself, which shouldn't normally be a problem.

Generally connecting to yourself shouldn't be an issue, since most anti-virus/firewall solutions allow connections to yourself (since nothing is actually going into or out of your actual network connection). Some firewalls are obviously a bit "stricter" and block this - and for some reason the devs didn't account for this (since other Unity games don't have this problem).

Originally I thought it had something to do with Google Analytics and the metrics it tries to send, but I have all the Shadowrun games blocked from my net and they work...