After 8 years of Maneaters, collecting grass, Potato Marshalls and lizard hunting, Demon's Souls' Servers are "finally" shutting down.

It’s not every day we get to bid farewell to a title supported for more than 8 years, especially one so foundational to how we play games today.

First, let’s get the tough news out of the way: on February 28, 2018, the servers for Demon’s Souls will be shut down. The game will remain fully playable, but online functionality such as in-game messaging, player death locations, and World Tendency features will stop working.

Credit: https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/

After a couple of scares (the servers were supposed to go down in 2011 and 2012), it's actually happening. Demon's Souls was arguably the most influentic original title from last generation, inspiring many other games with its unique multiplayer, its difficulty and its obtuse story. Of course, this is a great time to reflect on Demon's Souls. Atlus staff themselves have a few choice words to say about their surprise hit:

“Beating double Maneaters for the first time. F*** those guys. It’s also my proudest and most frustrating Platinum trophy to date.” – Nate Harris, Sales Administration Manager

“I played Demon’s Souls back in high school and it was one of the first games I had played in a long time where I felt a major sense of accomplishment after tackling a tough boss. I remember beating the Tower Knight and thinking, ‘Man, a boss fight hasn’t made my hands shake like that since I was a little kid.’ Plus, not knowing what was going to come next was always a thrill. You never knew what might be lurking around the corner.” – Jacob Onofrio, Quality Assurance

“Blighttown was the not-so-fond memory for me, haha. On top of an already difficult game, I had to worry about poison? And it wasn’t like you could just cure the poison, ‘cuz that area was just nothing but poison and you’ll get re-poisoned immediately. There was no getting around the poison. Did I mention the poison?” – Daryl Le, Quality Assurance

“My most memorable experience with Demon’s Souls was listening to Richard’s deluge of profanities while he was testing it, lol.” – Rob Stone, QA Lead

“I played like I lived, foolishly rolling off cliffs while trying to dodge skeleton enemies.” – Sara Chan, Product Marketing Specialist

“Every boss fight in Demon’s Souls was memorable, not necessarily because they were difficult, but because all of the bosses had a creative way of defeating them. The three moments that stuck out to me the most are when another player invaded me as the Old Monk, Maiden Astrea killing herself and when I found out that the last boss was a gross, bug jello thing. Demon’s Souls is a huge reason why I chose to work at ATLUS.” – Izumi Thorn, Translator

Of course, our very own Brad and Vinny have their own stories to tell:

What are your favourite memories of Demon's Souls?

Soul of the mind, key to life's ether. Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel. Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended. So the world might be mended.

End of an era. It was the last one of the series I beat and definitely felt like the most interesting. I want to know what it was like before Miyazaki took over.

Actually, without world tendency, what will become of the drops!?

There is some speculation that this could mean a possible remaster for PS4. I would personally prefer something new from From, but I wouldn't mind a remaster (maybe they could finish the 6th archstone).

World tendency is actually a lot easier to manipulate offline.

... Awwwh. I kinda', sort of wanted to replay this for the umpteenth time at some point. Can hardly blame 'em though, they went above and beyond.

Hell of a game.

Demon's Souls is also my proudest and most frustrating platinum trophy.

I like to think that this means that somewhere, Potato_Marshal is hysterically crying because he'll no longer be able to get his one joy in life from breaking people's gear.

Why do I get the feeling people will complain super loudly again and they'll keep them active still?

8 years is pretty good tbh.

o7

I wonder if this is not a confirmation that they'll definitely not do an HD remaster of Demons Souls, since they're shutting down the servers anyway.

I feel like they've been saying this since Dark Souls came out and I honestly thought they were already shut down. But damn, end of an era for sure.

I tried going though it a couple of years ago, but stopped because my saves got wiped(not a problem on the game's end). I guess I should finally get my ass in gear come new year and get it done.

My favorite memories of Demon's Soul thus far is watching other people play it. Brad and Vinny, naturally, but also ENB.

What I like the most about the game is the atmosphere. It's pretty unique within the series. All of the systems are more obtuse than ever, the combat is rough, it's all really hard and confusing unless you know how to break it. But the story is the most straightforward in the series, easy to follow, and then all the lore stuff just adds depth to it. Everything springs from one source, instead of being a mess of death/sun gods, witches that created demons, time travel and stone dragons. Series staples like light around your character, the woman that converts your souls into levels, summoning phantoms and fog gates in front of bosses only make sense in the context of Demon's Souls.

That makes it all feel comprehensive in a way that Dark Souls does not. Combined with the most mundane take on the locations in the series, the weird music and the muted color pallette, Demon's just has a mood to it that other games in the series don't. It's the sense of being grounded despite being a crazy thing with dragon gods that punch you to death. It's a strong first game, even though it's mechanically weak compared to the later titles.

Always wanted to play that game, but never had a PS3. I really hope it gets remade at some point.

Great game, I need a trophy or two to plat, I should get back in and see what I can do about that.

But then again, how well will I love it after all these years and three more fluid and developed games? It had so much personality but I think it might be clunky by the Souls' series modern standards.

online functionality such as in-game messaging, player death locations, and World Tendency features will stop working.

This doesn't explicitly mention invasions or co-op, but surely those are going down too, right?

Hoping that this is indication of a remaster, but we all shall see.

I like to think that Potato Marshall will still be there until the very end waiting to invade Brad :D

Maybe that means a Remaster at PSX, believe! It'd be really great.

The best Souls game and one of my favorite games ever. Honestly, good on them keeping the servers running this long, given the way that stuff tends to go nowadays. Still looking forward to whatever comes out of From next.

I guess this means I should dig out the copy that I bought a year or two ago and actually play through the whole thing online?

And thus a titan of the industry was felled. Make no mistake, at some point in the future I'm sure another "soul's like" game would have been made (probably an indie game); but I'll be damned if it didn't single-handedly save the video game industry for me. The whole industry was headed in such a terrible fucking direction of "no challenge" and "story" difficulties, "let me take over and play for you", and other such gameplay and mechanic-phobic games that I was honestly getting real bored with games. Thank god for From Software and Miyazaki to not only remind all the publishers and developers of the world that games are about gameplay, challenge, mechanics, and all the things that initially spawned the whole video game craze, but to also nail it so perfectly on their first try. You could take any one piece out of the game and it would have made a completely novel excellent standalone game (the difficulty/challenge, the async multiplayer, the atmosphere and storytelling, the "loop-back/shortcut" level design, and the gritty tactical combat) but yet they managed to do it all at once, and wrap it together so perfectly. I don't make numbered lists, but this would definitely be top 3 (if not the top) of any list I made for greatest games of all time.

The only Souls-like game I've played is half of Bloodborne. I would be interested in giving this or Dark Souls 1 a go if they got a remaster. Hell I may even give DS1 a go on the Xbone, once my "need to play games" list gets smaller.

Saw Marcus (Dark Souls streamer who eventually wound up working with From software on the hint guide's for Dark souls games) was hinting heavily in twitter that this was because of a remake. Servers in all 3 regions were actually handled by different companies yet they are all turning them off on the same day.

@rabidlamb:

I think it's reasonable speculation. We'll see.

I won't miss you, scraping spear.

Ah, the best Souls game.

There's a certain tragic nature to this sort of thing, where huge chunks of what gave a game its identity just get completely lost to history.

I've been replaying Demon's Souls via a Japanese edition I found when I visited Tokyo over the summer. I've gotten so much better at these games since I first played it 5 years ago, yet it's still not easy.

One thing I love about Demon's Souls in particular is that it is not afraid to get harder as you die. Die after reviving? Half health. Use archstones to try to stay at full health? Hey look, now you've got black world tendency! Enemies hit harder and you have even less health. Have fun! It bugged me that everyone complained so much when they tried to bring this back, even just a little bit, in Dark Souls 2. (Actually I firmly believe Demon's Souls is balanced for half health and that's the way From intended it to be played.)

RIP Potato Marshal

@humanity: Would the same servers even be compatible on a new platform? I don't know how games work.

I loved the unsettling atmosphere of World 3 and it was like one big playground for low-mid SL multiplayer. So many wild goose chases and deaths at the Mindflayer stairs.

Despite the obvious griefing and busted high SL PvP, I tend to remember the online fondly. Most people I ran into were good sports and there was a lot of generous trading to help each other with that awful platinum.

They did say they'd shut down the servers a couple years back already but for unknown reasons that just never happened

I feel like in years to come Demons Souls will be looked back on as one of the greatest games of its generation, if not all time. The game was such a trend setter, I honestly hadnet played anything like it for years. That feeling it gave you when you first started.... I don't need to describe it to you all, yall know what I'm talking about.