The PvP online servers for Dark Souls: Remastered, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition have been temporarily taken down on PC.
Bandai Namco announced the closure this weekend, citing “reports of an issue with online services.” Fortunately, the problem hasn’t impacted PlayStation or Xbox versions of the game, meaning PvPers on console are free to continue stabbing, slicing, and pyromancing one another.
“PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services,” a post on the Dark Souls Twitter account confirmed. “Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly. We apologize for this inconvenience.”
PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services.
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) January 23, 2022
Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly.
We apologize for this inconvenience.
There’s been no update since the closure, and Bandai Namco has yet to confirm exactly what the reason for the shutdown. It’s likely, however, that it relates to an invasion exploit highlighted recently on the Elden Ring subreddit. This severe Remote Code Execution made it possible for anyone invading to run code on your computer without permission. In effect, it allows bad faith actors to take complete control of a player’s computer. It’s a catastrophic flaw that was apparently still present in Elden Ring.
Fortunately, the hacker who discovered the issue appears not to have been malicious. They highlighted the fault during a livestream by The_Grim_Sleeper (thanks The Verge), forcing Microsoft’s text-to-speech to begin lambasting the playstyle of the streamer as the game crashes.
The issue was acknowledged in the subreddit by a Bandai Namco representative, and fortunately it appears that it will be rectified not just for the Dark Souls series, but also in advance of Elden Ring’s release next month.
There’s no word yet on when PC players can expect the PvP online servers for all of the Dark Souls titles to be brought back online once again.
