According to tweets from FromSoftware Player Support and the officially dark souls Twitter account, the PC servers for Dark Souls 3 have been reinstated after being taken offline since early January. The servers were initially shut down by FromSoftware to prevent a malicious remote code execution (RCE) that would allow hackers to take control of players’ computers. FromSoftware has been working on patching its servers and restoring the service ever since, and it looks like the time has finally come for one game.
FromSoftware took action shortly after the exploit surfaced during a Twitch stream that went viral and drew attention to the bug. The developer has disabled PVP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2and Dark Souls Remastered starting January 23, in addition to patching the community-created anti-cheat mod Blue Sentinel to protect against this vulnerability.
Online features for the PC version of Dark Souls III have been reactivated.
We are working on restoring these features for all others #Dark Souls titles and will notify you when they are back in use.
Thanks again for your patience and support. pic.twitter.com/XHiCZDEANC
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) August 25, 2022
The latest FromSoftware release, Elden Ring, was also investigated for the same exploit and has been patched.
While the servers for Dark Souls 3 be brought back online, there is still no timeline for when the service will be restored for Dark Souls Remastered or Dark Souls 2. According to a disclosure on GitHub, which describes the code and documentation for the RCE exploit, the same vulnerable code is also present in other FromSoftware titles. While there is no way to activate the exploit, the same code was found in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It has not been confirmed to exist in Demon Souls but is “very likely” also present there.