After two weeks of multiplayer downtime, Dark Souls 2 & 3’s mysterious server “issue” has been fixed, so it no longer feels so lonely online

FromSoftware has restored the online servers for Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 after an outage lasting nearly two weeks. The games’ online features include co-op and player-versus-player modes, as well as messages and ghostly traces left by other players, which help make their worlds feel less isolated.

The servers were taken offline on 30 October over an unspecified “server issue”, and FromSoftware has not said what caused it; some had speculated it might be linked to a PHP security bug affecting other games. The studio said its investigation was complete and a fix had been applied, and apologised for the disruption. A previous outage in 2022, caused by a vulnerability that could allow malicious code to run on servers, lasted three to nine months depending on the game.