Dark Souls 2 And 3 Have Just Been Taken Offline

Dark Souls 2 and 3 have suddenly been taken offline this morning, with FromSoftware stating an "issue" has forced them to make a decision.

While no specifics have been shared, this comes in the wake of AI-discovered PHP vulnerabilities, in which dozens of firms are re-evaluating their systems to avoid a potentially devastating hack.

Dark Souls 2 And 3 Taken Offline, Likely Due To Ongoing PHP Fears

Just last week, The Pokemon Company took multiple games and services offline . Pokemon , Champions, and Sleep went into "maintenance" as Pokemon confronted hacking fears. Now, Dark Souls 2 and 3 are facing a similar fate, with FromSoftware confirming its two classic titles are offline.

"We have discovered an issue with the game servers for the following game titles, and as a result, we will be taking down the game servers across all platforms," it said in a new . "We will provide a separate announcement as soon as the recovery timeline is determined. We apologize for any inconvenience caused to our users."

It then references 2014's Dark Souls 2 and 2016's Dark Souls 3 as the games in question. It comes just two days after server maintenance on Dark Souls 2 was completed. It's unclear whether any other FromSoftware titles, like Elden Ring, Nightreign, Sekiro, or Armored Core, are impacted.

There are some fears we could be facing a repeat of 2022 all over again. In January of that year, FromSoftware discovered a serious Remote Code Execution exploit that allowed hackers to take control of players' PCs in PvP modes of Dark Souls 2, 3, and Remastered. Dark Souls 3 was down for the shortest period, a still staggering 214 days; Dark Souls 2 was down for 275 days; and Dark Souls Remastered was down for a whopping 290 days .

The current PHP issues could impact as many as 70 percent of apps and websites. The programming language is widely used, and discoveries made earlier this month are particularly widespread. While the issue has received fixes , warnings were still in place for companies to take down anything that uses PHP until it's fully resolved.

Alongside the Pokemon games and services listed, other titles have been pulled from storefronts worldwide. Most notably, Capcom removed Street Fighter 5 from digital storefronts and temporarily shut down its online servers until it could confirm the game was secure. PC storefront GOG also faced a four-hour outage, and multiple major Japanese mobile titles, including Umamusume: Pretty Derby, went offline.