The Demon’s Souls online servers were shut down last week, bringing an end to the game’s online multiplayer component and making it the first Souls game to have its support concluded by From Software. However, fans of the game have worked to bring private servers to the title, to ensure that it continues to have an active player base despite its multiplayer having officially been shut down.
The Demon’s Souls private servers are an open source project, with players contributing their own efforts in an attempt to grow out the number of users populating them. Details of the servers were posted on Reddit, allowing Demon’s Souls fans to collaborate with one another and centralize information on the packet data.
The servers for the game shut down on February 28th, with players gathering to provide the action RPG a solemn send-off. As Demon’s Souls kicked off From Software’s hugely popular and devilishly challenging Souls series, it is also the first entry in the franchise to have the curtains drawn on its servers, with the original Dark Souls now next on the chopping block. However, we can imagine it will still be quite some time before Dark Souls‘ online multiplayer is brought to an end, with it still attracting a relatively healthy number of players considering its age.
Though the servers may have officially been brought down, the private servers allow the game to live on and even provide it with a neat new feature. While From’s servers were region-locked, the open source nature of these private servers means that players in North America and Europe can now play with one another. For every cloud, there’s a silver lining!
If you haven’t played Demon’s Souls or are thinking about jumping back into the game, then the private servers allow you to do so alongside other like-minded players. We hope that enough players contribute to them to keep them running long into the future.
