FromSoftware Shuts Down Dark Souls 2 and 3 Servers on All Platforms With No Return Date and No Cause Given

By CriticalPixel · 2026-10-31

FromSoftware has switched off the online servers for Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 on every platform, and nobody outside the company knows when they are coming back. The studio's player support account posted the notice on October 30, saying a fault was found in the game servers and that a recovery timeline would be shared separately once it exists. That is the entire official statement. No cause, no estimate, no apology beyond the standard line about the inconvenience.

Dark Souls III screenshot of a knight facing a boss in a gothic arena

What is actually down

Both games still boot and the single-player campaigns work fine, but everything that made them feel alive online is gone. No invasions, no summon signs, no co-op, no messages scrawled on the floor warning you about the next ledge. According to Game*Spark, the outage covers all platforms for both titles, and the cause and specifics have not been disclosed. PC Gamer, citing a report from Eurogamer, confirms the same picture: multiplayer is off for an indeterminate stretch because of an undisclosed server issue.

Both games are built around other players. Dark Souls 3 leans on covenants, invasions and summons as a core part of its loop, and Dark Souls 2 got fresh attention this autumn when its Seamless Co-op mod arrived, which makes the timing sting even more. You can see the full feature set the games ship with on the Dark Souls III Steam page, where online play is listed as part of the package, and that is the part players cannot touch right now. For anyone halfway through a new character build, the offline mode is a poor substitute for the messy, unpredictable human element that defined these games.

The 2022 shadow

Veterans will remember the last time this happened. In January 2022, FromSoftware pulled the PC servers for Dark Souls Remastered, Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 to investigate security vulnerabilities, right before Elden Ring launched. Game*Spark notes that online services for the PC version of Dark Souls 3 only came back in August 2022, and Dark Souls 2 followed in October. That was months of silence, and it left a lot of players with a bad taste about how long the studio takes to patch its older netcode.

There are differences this time. PC Gamer points out that only the second and third games are affected, while the shutdown reaches every platform and not just PC. The outlet reads that as a sign the problem may be smaller and quicker to fix than the 2022 remote code execution scare. That is a reasonable hope, but it is still a guess, because FromSoftware has not said what broke. Game*Spark also mentions that Capcom recently pulled Street Fighter V from sale for PHP security hardening, though it says it is unclear whether the two cases are related. Treat that as a coincidence in timing until someone shows a link.

What players are saying

Reaction under the support post is mostly weary. Some players joke about asking for a Nightreign server break while their own session dies, one person hopes the compensation is crossplay for Elden Ring, and others grumble that these games have gone years without proper multiplayer care. That is a handful of replies, not a survey, so the honest read is that the community is annoyed and waiting, not in open revolt.

Dark Souls III screenshot of a lone warrior in a ruined castle

The silver lining for PC

There is one real escape hatch on PC. Yui's Seamless Co-op mods run on their own infrastructure, separate from the official servers, so anyone willing to install them can keep playing together while the official side is dark. PC Gamer notes the Dark Souls 2 version only landed at the end of September, and the Dark Souls 3 mod has been around for a long time. Console players have no such option, which makes this a very uneven outage depending on where you play.

Our take

This is a decade old netcode problem showing its age, and the lack of detail is the part that stings. A two sentence notice with no ETA is a thin way to treat a community that has kept these games populated for ten years. If this is a security fix, say so, because players deserve to know whether their accounts and machines were ever at risk. If it is an infrastructure fault, give a rough window. Silence is what turned the 2022 episode into a months long saga in the minds of fans.

Dark Souls III screenshot of a torch lit corridor and enemies

For now the advice is simple. Do not count on a quick return, check the FromSoftware player support account for updates, and if you are on PC, grab the seamless co-op mods and keep the fires lit. We will update this story when the studio posts a timeline.