FromSoftware takes Dark Souls 2 and 3 servers offline, no ETA

FromSoftware has temporarily shut down the game servers for Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 on all platforms. The studio announced it in an October 30 post on X, blaming an unspecified “server issue” and giving no estimate for when online features will return.

The post read: “Due to a server issue, the game servers for the following titles will be temporarily unavailable on all platforms.” FromSoftware added that it would share updates “once we have information regarding the server restoration time” and apologized for the inconvenience. Eurogamer and PC Gamer both note that this presumably takes out invasions, co-op summoning and player messages in both games.

GamesRadar+ reported that roughly eight hours after the post, no further update had been issued. It also pointed out that Dark Souls 2 had a separate round of server maintenance a couple of days earlier. The studio has not explained what the problem is.

Why it matters

The outage invites comparison with 2022. According to PC Gamer, a serious remote code execution vulnerability was found in the Dark Souls games just before Elden Ring launched, and the PC servers stayed offline for months. GamesRadar+ says the PC servers for Dark Souls Remastered, Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 were dark for most of that year, and that co-op and invasions were dead the whole time. Eurogamer adds that the Dark Souls 3 servers went down again a few months after the first shutdown.

This time the scope is different. Only two games are affected, but the shutdown covers every platform rather than just PC. PC Gamer’s writer reads that as a sign the problem may be less serious and quicker to fix, though that is an opinion and FromSoftware has said nothing to support it.

PC players do have a workaround. PC Gamer says the Dark Souls co-op mod by modder Yui runs on its own servers, separate from FromSoftware’s, so it keeps working during the outage. The Dark Souls 2 version of the mod arrived at the end of September, and the Dark Souls 3 version has existed for some time.

The shutdown also lands in a rough stretch for the studio’s online plans. Eurogamer notes that the first network test of The Duskbloods was pulled early because of similarly vague “server issues”, and that FromSoftware this week moved the Switch 2 exclusive’s launch window to 2027. The developer said the game is at the “final adjustment stage”.

What we don’t know yet

FromSoftware has not said what caused the problem or how long the servers will be down. GamesRadar+ notes that the outage comes about a week after many sites and online services were temporarily taken down following newly discovered PHP vulnerabilities, but says it is not known whether that played any role.