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After nine years, online service for Demon’s Souls, FromSoftware’s groundbreaking role-playing game for PlayStation 3, is coming to an end. The game’s online component will be shut down on Feb. 28, 2018, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced today.
Demon’s Souls will go offline at 5 p.m. Japan Time (that’s 3 a.m. ET) on Feb. 28.
The official English-language Dark Souls Twitter account confirmed the shutdown, which will affect players worldwide.
After 9 years of reoccurring deaths and frustrations, but just as many triumphs of dedication, Demon's Souls online servers will terminate on February 28, 2018. Play online one last time, and share with us your best Demon's Souls moment! pic.twitter.com/knIgmXLqFW
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) November 27, 2017
Publisher Atlus also confirmed the news in the form of a “fond farewell” to Demon’s Souls’ servers.
The termination of Demon’s Souls’ online services will have a major impact on the game. It will mean an end to online cooperative and competitive multiplayer, the ability to write and read messages from other players, and the ability to see other players’ deaths and their wandering illusions. That will also impact the game’s inventive Old Monk boss battle, which attempts to summon another player to the player’s world, and its World Tendency features.
Demon’s Souls was published by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan, by Atlus in North America, and by Bandai Namco in Europe.
FromSoftware released the Japanese version of Demon’s Souls in February 2009. The game came to North America later that year. At one point, Atlus planned to end online service for Demon’s Souls back in 2012, but changed its plans after “a number of developments ... made it possible for us to continue to invest in and support our fans as they have continued to invest in and support us and Demon's Souls,” Atlus said.
