Players battling it out in Dark Souls 2. | Screenshot: Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin
If you’re still playing Dark Souls or Dark Souls 2 on PC, then I have both good and bad news for you.
The good news is that online features for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, a remastered version of the second game in the series, are back online. They were disabled back in January after an exploit was discovered that had the potential to allow an attacker to take over your PC remotely. It means Scholar of the First Sin PC players will once again be able to play cooperatively and competitively online, Polygon notes.
We have determined that we will not be able to support online services for the PC version of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition that was released in 2012, due to an aging system.
We apologize for the long wait and ask for your understanding in this matter.
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) October 25, 2022
The slightly less good news is that servers for the non-remastered Dark Souls 2 as well as the remastered version of the original Dark Souls are still MIA, but that they’re on the way. FromSoftware’s Twitter thread doesn’t provide an exact timeframe for when they might return, but says that work is ongoing.
Finally, the bad news is that online features for the original 2012 PC port of the first Dark Souls game, named Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition, are never coming back. In a tweet, FromSoftware says that it can’t bring them back “due to an aging system” but adds that the ten year-old title will still be playable offline, and that existing saves shouldn’t be affected.
The announcement comes two months after Dark Souls 3’s PC servers were brought back at the end of August.