It’s been 106 days since Bandai Namco and Fromsoftware took down the Dark Souls PC servers, thanks to the RCE exploit. Now, I’m not going to explain just what exactly this is again, but you can read about it here. Since then, I’ve been covering the outage and hoping that we’d get an update on the matter.
However, earlier today there was an article from PC Gamer that may have provided the hope that the Dark Souls PC community was looking for. But when I looked into it, it was just a red herring. Let me explain.
PC Gamer noticed that over on the Dark Souls 3 subreddit, a post from Reddit user Relevant-Heart-1751, who had recently contacted Bandai Namco’s support. Just like many of us, Relevant-Heart-1751 wanted to know when the Dark Souls PC servers would make a return. When Bandai Namco provided a reply, it seemed like the update was helpful. Except when I looked into it further, it wasn’t.
Here’s what Bandai Namco’s support replied with:
Thank you for reaching out to us and your interest in the games. I’m getting back to you regards to your inquiry if the Dark Souls servers for the PC will be back online.
I’m happy to confirm that the developers are actively working on resolving the issue in question and are re-launching the Dark Souls servers for the PC as soon as possible. For the moment, we do not have an e estimate of when this is expected to happen, however I encourage you to follow us on social media here to stay up to date with all the latest news.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding. If you have any additional inquiries, our department remains at your disposal.
Unfortunately, this reply is very similar to the blanket reply I had received from Bandai Namco via their Dark Soul Discord and email. That is before they stopped talking to me after I kept asking for updates. The last official reply that anyone received was via the Dark Souls Twitter account, which stated the servers would be offline until after Elden Ring was released. Of course, it was never mentioned when precisely that would be. A month? A few months? An entire year? Maybe they should have been specific, as Elden Ring’s release has come and gone. Meanwhile, the servers are still down.
#DarkSouls pic.twitter.com/ZRhX9OcvQe
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) February 9, 2022
With it being 106+ days since the servers went dark, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the servers are coming back. And while it seems like I’m attempting to shoot the messenger, which isn’t my intent, if Bandai Namco was to provide an update, I’m sure it would be in bright lights so that everyone would see it.
For now, PC gamers can still experience Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3, but strictly offline. If anyone wants to play Dark Souls as it was intended to be played, with online features that enable co-op and PC, they’ll have to resort to playing on consoles.
