FromSoftware brings Dark Souls III servers back online after 7 months

FromSoftware has brought the Dark Souls III servers back online after seven months. This makes it possible to use multiplayer functions again. The developer states that it is still working to fix the same vulnerabilities in Dark Souls I and II.

The Dark Souls, Dark Souls: Remastered, Dark Souls II and Dark Souls III servers went offline in late January after a remote code execution vulnerability was discovered. That vulnerability was demonstrated during a broadcast from Twitch streamer The__Grim__Sleeper. The vulnerability allowed an attacker to gain the same rights within a computer system as the rights the game was supposed to have. Dark Souls III did not use admin rights, but it was possible to exploit other vulnerabilities in a system through this vulnerability, making the discovery all the more serious.

Shortly after the vulnerability was discovered, Bandai Namco shut down the servers of all Dark Souls titles, after all, all these games would contain the same vulnerability. Because of this it was no longer possible to use the pvp mode (invasions). The cooperative elements of the game were also unusable, including messages players left for each other in the game worlds. It is not yet clear when the servers of these games will come back online. FromSoftware writes on Twitter well that it is working on that.

After the demonstration of the vulnerability, criticism of FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco grew. The Dark Souls community was primarily unhappy with the way the two game companies handled this vulnerability. After all, the hacker who demonstrated the vulnerability mentioned that he had already reported the vulnerability to FromSoftware and Bandai Namco. They had done nothing with it up to that point. The Dark Souls community came out with a own patch for the vulnerability. The fact that FromSoftware and Bandai Namco had not yet implemented a solution at the time made many people upset. Many fans of the Dark Souls games feared that the multiplayer functions of the game would be permanently disabled by FromSoftware and Bandai Namco.

Announcement FromSoftware about servers Dark Souls III