Dark Souls 2 back online after 9 months of downtime, original Dark Souls to stay offline

Nine months after developer FromSoftware temporarily removed online services for its Dark Souls games on PC, a move caused by a potentially dangerous exploit discovered in its multiplayer component, the studio has brought another of those games back online. FromSoftware announced Tuesday that online servers for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin on Windows PC have been reactivated.

Alongside that good news, FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco also delivered some bad: The original Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition of the game on PC will remain offline forever.

On the official Dark Souls Twitter account, FromSoft and Bandai Namco announced that online features — competitive and cooperative play — have been restored for the DirectX 11 version of Dark Souls 2, and that online features for the base version of the game (on DirectX 9) will return “at a later date.”

The Dark Souls Twitter account also noted that online services for the PC version of 2012’s Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition will no longer be supported “due to an aging system.” The developer and publisher said that it does plan to restore online services for the PC version of Dark Souls Remastered, released in 2018, but did not provide an estimate.

FromSoft previously restored online features for Dark Souls 3 in August.

In January, FromSoftware announced that it was removing online features from its Dark Souls games on Windows PC after a vulnerability was discovered that could lead to malicious code being installed on another user’s computer. PlayStation and Xbox versions of the Dark Souls games were not affected, but at the time, FromSoft fans were concerned the same vulnerability could affect the PC version of Elden Ring. The developer released a statement in February, ahead of Elden Ring’s release, to assure players that “the necessary security measures are in place for this title on all target platforms.