March 31 Will Be a Sad Day for Dark Souls Fans

Summary

The Dark Souls 2 PS3 and Xbox 360 servers are shutting down on March 31 at 5:00 PDT/14:00 CEST/21:00 JST.
Scholar of the First Sin edition keeps Dark Souls 2 online features active on newer platforms.

Sunday, March 31 is going to be a sad day for Dark Souls fans, as that's the day the PS3 and Xbox 360 servers for Dark Souls 2 are being shut down. FromSoftware's Dark Souls trilogy earned widespread critical acclaim and popularized the Soulslike genre that is so prevalent today. However, Dark Souls 2 is often pointed to as the black sheep of the series.

Dark Souls 2 was not directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who served as the director of the original game and Dark Souls 3. Instead, the legendary director took on a supervisor role with Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 2 features some significant departures from the other Dark Souls games, with an increased difficulty, tying invincibility frames to the Agility stat, lowering players' maximum health upon death, and other changes that were not received well. Others have praised the game as one of the best in the series and enjoy how it stands out.

Miyazaki is Absolutely Right About Dark Souls 2

In a recent interview, FromSoftware's Director Hidetaka Miyazaki made some big statements about Dark Souls 2's impact on FromSoft's future.

Posts

By Cameron Swan

Regardless of how one feels about Dark Souls 2, March 31 is going to mark the end of an era for the game. On that day, FromSoftware will be shutting down the Dark Souls 2 servers on PS3 and Xbox 360, the game's original platforms. This will effectively make it impossible for those on PS3 or Xbox 360 to experience Dark Souls 2's PvP and co-op modes, though offline play will still be available. The Dark Souls 2 servers will officially close at 5:00 PDT/14:00 CEST/21:00 JST.

When Are the Dark Souls 2 Servers Shutting Down?

Sunday, March 31 at 5:00 PDT/14:00 CEST/21:00 JST
Servers for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin will remain active

It's always sad whenever a game's servers are shut down, but the good news is that Dark Souls 2's online features will still be accessible on newer platforms through the Scholar of the First Sin edition. Released about a year after the original Dark Souls 2 launched, Scholar of the First Sin brought the game to PS4 and Xbox One. This version of Dark Souls 2 will keep its online servers for now, so gamers can still use its online features.

It's possible that the Dark Souls 2 servers will eventually shut down for all versions of the game, though that remains to be seen. FromSoftware keeps the online alive for its games for quite a long time, even if the communities for those games have largely moved on to newer FromSoftware projects.

Right now, it's likely that FromSoftware's most-populated game is Elden Ring, as many fans have returned to the massive open world game in anticipation of the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring is scheduled to drop on June 21, so anyone needing their FromSoftware multiplayer fix should be sure to jump back into Elden Ring at that point.

Rating block community and brand ratings Image