From Software has taken down the PvP servers in all Dark Souls series games following the discovery of a major security flaw. The PvP servers on the PC versions of Dark Souls: Remastered, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition are down for the foreseeable future. This will not affect the PlayStation or Xbox console servers.
Why have the Dark Souls PvP servers been taken down?
Earlier last week, fans from the Dark Souls modding community discovered an exploit that allowed hackers to control the computer of another player through PvP. The exploit is reportedly easier to execute than previous hacks and even gives hackers access to the entire computer outside of the Dark Souls application. The white-hat hacker who found the exploit later contacted From Software to report the bug. However, the company failed to respond for over a month.
The hacker then contacted the developers of the popular Blue Sentinel anti-cheat tool for Dark Souls 3 to create a patch for the game. Afterward, to raise awareness of the issue, the hacker decided to demonstrate the exploit live on stream. From then on, players grew increasingly concerned about the danger of the new exploit and its possible effects on upcoming games like Elden Ring, which reportedly uses the same netcode as DS3.
This prompted From Software to take down the servers and issue a statement on Twitter:
PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services.
Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly.We apologize for this inconvenience.
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) January 23, 2022
In other news, Ubisoft recently ended post-launch support for Watch Dogs: Legion. Guerilla Games also revealed that Horizon: Forbidden West will have a single ending that is “very strong and impactful”.