Dark Souls 2: Scholar Of The First Sin's online features have been restored
FromSoftware are still working on the Dark Souls Remastered servers
Praise the sun! Dark Souls II's online features for the Scholar Of The First Sin edition are back up and working after months of being down. Back in January, FromSoftware deactivated online features for the Dark Souls trilogy on PC due to the prominence of hackers and security concerns. Recently, Dark Souls III servers were reactivated (before being deactivated and reactivated again) and now it's Dark Souls II’s turn. The base version of Dark Souls II will have these features “made available at a later date," but for now, Scholar Of The First Sin players can continue to invade the fallen kingdom of Drangleic and scribble down messages for others.
It’s not all good news, though. FromSoftware also announced that they will be unable "to support online services for the PC version of Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition” due to an “aging system.” FromSoft are working on restoring online services for the PC version of Dark Souls Remastered, but there’s no word as to when they’ll be back online. This also means if Prepare To Die owners want to experience PvP and other features, they’ll need to rebuy the Remastered version of the game.
The server problems back in January were numerous at the time, and pretty severe. Hackers were able to get other players banned, corrupt other players’ save files and give themselves infinite health while invading a game. Worst of all, a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability allowed hackers to take control of other people’s PCs.
Thankfully, Elden Ring shouldn’t be vulnerable to the same security risks that threatened the Dark Souls series. After closing servers at the start of the year, FromSoftware stated they had "extended the investigation to Elden Ring" and “made sure the necessary security measures are in place” on all platforms.
Our Ed should be quite chuffed with this news since he named Dark Souls II as one of the games from 2014 worth saving: “It’s a flawed journey of fantastic scope, and you can’t knock its ambition.” Game preservation is good, actually.