As gamers the world over prepare for the release of FromSoftware's Elden Ring at the end of the month, some may be getting some time in playing their favorite Souls games in anticipation. According to gamers who frequent Dark Souls PvP on PC, there have been a myriad of security problems that have arisen over the past month. After becoming aware of a "serious exploit" regarding Dark Souls on PC, Bandai Namco has released a statement indicating that it has discovered a fix for the security glitch, but will need to keep all Dark Souls servers on ice until the end of the month.
Bandai Namco put out a statement firstly assuring Dark Souls fans that a solution has been discovered by the team at FromSoftware and that it is diligently working to implement it. The publisher also wanted to thank the entire community for bringing the problem to its attention and for offering solutions for the developer. However, Bandai Namco notes that the entire Dark Souls suite of games on PC will have to brought offline for maintenance and to ensure "proper testing environments."
Bandai Namco has also stated that the Dark Souls servers on PC will not be up and running until after the release of Elden Ring on February 25th. This would put the games' return to online status at the end of the month or possibly even longer. Speaking of Elden Ring, the publisher states that this same investigation is being extended to the game's upcoming release to ensure all online interactions are smooth and safe across all platforms, not just PC.
Back in January, a security hack was discovered in Dark Souls 3 that allowed the hacker to maliciously take control of another player's PC by sharing login information, executing programs in the background, or even bricking the system entirely. Bandai Namco and FromSoftware immediately set out to fix the issue, warning users to not play Dark Souls 3 online. It was also feared the hack had made its way into Elden Ring's online mode as well.
Bandai Namco says that it will make an announcement once it is ready to resume online capabilities for the Dark Souls series. Hopefully, the fix doesn't take too long to implement as Elden Ring's release is fast approaching and not having an online infrastructure ready and waiting will no doubt irritate many launch-day players. However, safety comes first, so fingers crossed everything plays out smoothly.
Elden Ring releases on February 25, 2022.