The end of an era is coming near. Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia, which published the PlayStation 3 game Demon’s Souls in Japan, has today just announced that the online services for the game will be terminated on February 28, 2018.
Demon’s Souls is a dark fantasy action RPG game developed by From Software that was released for PlayStation 3 in 2009. It received highly favorable receptions due to the unrelentingly high difficulty and the astounding dark fantasy designs, and From Software would continue the legacy by creating Dark Souls and Bloodborne as spiritual successors to this game.
Although Demon’s Souls is also praised for its innovative online features, sadly that cannot be maintained forever as companies have to spend resources on managing online servers and will inevitably have to close them sooner or later. The following features will no longer be available after the online services are deactivated:
- Online multiplayer (Co-op and Invasions)
- Inputting and viewing Hint Messages
- Other players’ Bloodstains (Watching replays of their deaths)
- Loitering Phantoms
- Viewing the Ranking leaderboards
As this announcement is made in Japan, where Demon’s Souls is published by Sony, it is currently unknown if online services for the games will also be closed or not for North America and Europe as the game was separately published in those regions by Atlus USA and Bandai Namco respectively.
[Source: SIEJA]
