While most of us may be celebrating Easter on March 31, 2024, some are in mourning, as Fromsoftware has announced that as of today, the Dark Souls 2 servers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One will be taken offline. To be accurate, Fromsoftware announced this in December 2023, but today is the day, and it’s sad for many. I also want to clarify that this only affects the vanilla Dark Souls 2 servers, not Dark Soul 2: Scholar of the First Sin. Those servers are safe… for now.
While Dark Souls 2 wasn’t exactly the best game in the series, and many of us have moved on to the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the game, there are still a great many Dark Souls 2 fans who were playing the now serverless versions. Don’t believe me? Check out the Dark Souls 2 subreddit.
『DARK SOULS II』PS3、Xbox 360版に関して、2024年3月31日(日)をもちましてオンラインサービスを終了いたしました。長きにわたりご愛顧いただき、ありがとうございました。なお、PS4、Xbox One、Windows DirectX 9 / 11版はオンラインでのゲームプレイを引き続きお楽しみいただけます。 pic.twitter.com/dpQ1xDGr0D
— FROMSOFTWARE PLAYER SUPPORT (@fromsoftware_sp) March 31, 2024
For those still playing the PS3 and Xbox One versions of Dark Souls 2, maybe this will be the spark that gets them to purchase the updated versions, and they really should. The revised versions of Dark Souls 2: Sins of the First Scholar featured 60 frames per second, compared to the 30 frames per second of the original PS3/Xbox 360 versions and 1080p resolutions. Not to mention, there are different enemy placements for those who were still playing the vanilla version of Dark Souls 2.
Of course, you can still fire up your copies of Dark Souls 2 or Dark Souls 2: SoftS on the PS3 or Xbox 360, but you won’t be able to go online today. So, it’s your call to upgrade and move on. Remember that if you do, you’ll also have to start over from scratch; I know how much that will hurt. But if you don’t, there’s no more jolly cooperation or PVP.
It’s a sad day for Dark Souls 2 fans, but those servers have had a great run, and it’s time for them to go hollow. So, pour out an estus for the Dark Souls 2 servers that had us tossing controllers and throwing fits, as well as some glorious PVP action.
Dark Souls 2 was first released on March 11, 2014, for the PS3 and Xbox 360, 10 years ago.