Dark Souls 3 Is In Trouble
Dark Souls 3 online servers spent 200 days offline, and after being fixed, the servers are back down again.
Following 200 days of continuous downtime, FromSoftware finally managed to fix the Dark Souls 3 servers and enable online play. Now, four weeks after the game came back online, the servers went off once again, with Bandai Namco confirming that it’s investigating the issues with the servers once again. The issue was announced by the Dark Souls Twitter page, saying that Steam servers are down once again, but no explanation of the issue was given, as well as the timeframe in which the fix would be deployed.
For those that aren’t familiar with the Dark Souls 3 server issues, the problems began in January this week, after Bandai Namco learned of a dangerous vulnerability in their games’ online component that could lead to malicious code being installed on another user’s computer. According to IGN, the company announced that it was aware of the massive security issue and removed the disabled the online component from all Dark Souls games on PC — PlayStation and Xbox versions of the games weren’t affected by the vulnerability, so they continued to operate without major interruptions.
Admittedly, the Dark Souls 3 server vulnerability was a massive issue, as it opened the servers to hackers who could install malicious software and steal sensitive information from other users’ personal computers, including IP addresses, login credentials, and banking info. At the same time, FromSoftware was concerned about the same issue being present in their Elden Ring title, which was one month away from its release date at the time. In fact, the company had discovered a similar breach in Elden Ring pre-release and patched it up before the game’s launch date.
Following the release of Elden Ring and the removal of smaller problems that plagued the game post-launch — nothing worth reporting — FromSoftware dedicated its time to fixing the Dark Souls server issue. In May 2022, the developer announced that it was working on a fix for the servers and had implemented several corrections into the game’s code. Unfortunately, the repairs were extensive, and FromSoftware couldn’t give players a timeframe in which they would be completed.
Dark Souls 3 servers came back online in late August, while those running online components for the first and second games remained offline for the time being. Despite the ongoing issues, Dark Souls 3’s fandom remained passionate about their favorite gaming title and celebrated the return of the game’s online component. Unfortunately, those celebrations turned out the be short-lived, and the PVP servers are, once again, offline. This time there’s no information about the cause of the problem nor the severity of the issue.
In fact, neither Bandai Namco nor FromSoftware has disclosed the likely length of the downtime nor the timeframe in which the fix would be deployed. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before PC gamers can resume their gameplay once again. Also, there isn’t any news from Bandai Namco regarding the operational, or rather inoperative, state of Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 servers or whether and at what time they would be restored to full functionality.
