Most souls games offer the option of going offline. Its not recommended, but I've done solo offline runs of Dark Souls and Demon Souls on PS3, and its doable if you know what you are doing.
Yes, it can be for DRM purposes. If you can figure out legitimate buyers from nonlegit ones, based on their IP addresses, you can ban by IP address, and prevent server authentication. Its what most games with a multiplayer component does to deal with hackers or botters on things like Rust or Conan Exiles.
Conceivably, when connecting to the server, it checks what your .lic file is, and could apply an IP ban to anyone using the crack. Thus preventing anyone from playing the game in the future, even if they change out the .lic file, as most don't know how to change their IP address, except via a VPN.
And as the .lic file was originally created as DRM... this could be a way the developer is trying to use to get around the cracked .lic file. Because honestly, the save file sizes aren't that large and the saves aren't even compatible between versions, so the reasoning behind using the cloud for saving is pretty suspicious.