Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have announced that the Dark Souls games on PC will remain offline for a while longer. The companies didn’t give an estimate for when the games would be back online. Only to say that online service would not resume until after the release of Elden Ring. That means over two more weeks of downtime minimum for PC gamers. Check out the full statement below.
“BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment and FromSoftware are aware of the technical difficulties players have experienced with the DARK SOULS suite of games on PC.
We want to thank the entire DARK SOULS community and the players who have reached out to us directly to voice their concerns and offer solutions. Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue.
In addition, we have extended the investigation to ELDEN RING – our upcoming title launching on February 25th – and have made sure the necessary security measures are in place for this title on all target platforms.
Due to the time required to set up proper testing environments, online services for the DARK SOULS series on PC will not resume until after the release of ELDEN RING. We will continue to do everything we can to bring back these services as soon as possible.
We will make an announcement as soon as the schedule is determined for resuming online services. Please stay tuned to the DARK SOULS social media channels for updates.
Once again, please allow us to share our thanks to you, our passionate community.”
Dark Souls Twitter
The technical issue referred to in the statement is a nasty exploit that allows hackers to completely take over the PC of anyone playing a Dark Souls game. The issue, known as a Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploit, allows any code to be run remotely on a PC. Essentially, it allows hackers to run viruses, ransomware, or anything else they can think of through the game on someone else’s PC. As far as bugs go, an RCE exploit is about as serious as it gets. As such, Bandai Namco made the decision to take all of the Dark Souls games on PC offline immediately. The games have remained offline since January 23.
Hopefully, Dark Souls players on PC don’t have to wait too long after the release of Elden Ring for the games to go back online.