Yesterday on February 28, the tweet seen just below gained a lot of popularity from a Japanese audience, appearing to highlight a Dark Souls 3 livestream. A localizer on Twitter (opens in new tab) thankfully translated the whole tweet, revealing that a high school student in Japan is streaming their first playthrough of Dark Souls 3, but every time they die, they have to study for 10 consecutive hours.

死ぬたびに10時間勉強する『ダークソウル3』初見プレイhttps://t.co/FXgLWUCrd8投稿者は東大志望の高校2年生。シリーズ自体初プレイ。1年半後に迫る高校卒業までに、東大合格とゲームクリアの両立を目指す。「引き返せ」の血文字を「引き寄せ」と誤読して突撃するなど、見どころ満載。 pic.twitter.com/5oL77QVpKKFebruary 28, 2022

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There’s a very good reason for this. The translator reveals that this student is actually trying to get into a top university in Japan, and with competition red hot for places in top colleges around the country, this student is taking an extra step to try and guarantee their place, spurring on their revision by meeting an untimely demise in Dark Souls 3.

That’s not to say they’re dying on purpose, though. Unfortunately, the streamer doesn’t keep an on-demand section for their past livestreams, so you’ll have to keep an eye on their NicoVideo (opens in new tab) profile if you actually want to catch them in action. The whole thing seems like a brilliant, high-concept ordeal though. Viewers in chat keep typing “YOU STUDY” every time the “You Died” text flashes up on the screen.

Perhaps we’ll see this player eventually return to streaming other FromSoftware games like this in the future, when they’re in need of an extra big dose of motivation. An Elden Ring playthrough in this style would make for a fascinating watch. Here’s hoping someone takes on the game in a similarly bananas fashion at some point soon.

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While neither FromSoftware nor Bandai Namco has formally detailed what’s happened, rumors across both the Dark Souls and Elden Ring subreddit (opens in new tab) suggest that without intervention or a fix, “it is possible for Dark Souls 3 invaders to run code on your PC without permission. AKA RCE, Remote Code Execution. This same hack is possible in Elden Ring”.

PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services. Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly.We apologize for this inconvenience.January 23, 2022

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“PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services,” explains a notice on the Dark Souls’ official Twitter feed earlier today.

“Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly. We apologize for this inconvenience.”

The Verge (opens in new tab) goes further with an explanation, stating that the exploit was first publicized when a streamer was hacked via an RCE during a live broadcast. Though the hacker stopped short of providing evidence, the hacker says they had tried, and failed, to get FromSoftware to take the issue seriously. It seemingly took a livestream hacked in real-time to get either FromSoft or publisher Bandai Namco’s attention.

As of Sunday evening UK time there’s been no subsequent update, nor confirmation on when the servers made be restored. As always, we’ll keep you posted.

Did you know Elden Ring has become Steam’s most wishlisted game (opens in new tab)? All year long, Dying Light 2 has topped the chart – it reportedly knocked Cyberpunk 2077 off the perch in December 2020 and has remained there ever since – but a couple of weeks ago, From Software’s eagerly-anticipated action RPG has claimed the top spot, just a few weeks ahead of the release date of both games.

Valve doesn’t provide hard figures to substantiate the claims, so we can’t analyze them in granular detail, and Steam users have to remove their own preferences to see the unfiltered list. Interestingly enough, though, SteamDB’s own chart – which doesn’t always tally with Valve’s – intimates the same line-up.

ICYMI, a consumer survey – reportedly from Elden Ring developer From Software – has revealed a new Armored Core installment is in development (opens in new tab).

Read up on our new games 2022 (opens in new tab) guide for a complete look over all the other games launching over the next few months.

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There’s a lot riding on this particular piece of Dark Souls DLC. Hidetaka Miyazaki, president of FromSoftware and creator of the esteemed Souls games, has hinted that Dark Souls 3 (opens in new tab) could be the last sequel we see from the series, at least for a long while. And as the latter of two additions to Dark Souls 3, The Ringed City could be viewed as something of a grand finale for a franchise that’s become an indelible touchstone for the action RPG genre. As if that weren’t enough pressure, it also has to earn back goodwill after the previous DLC, Ashes of Ariandel, left some players cold with its shorter playtime and largely linear progression. The Ringed City aims to fix all that, with an immense new realm that acts like a convergence of familiar worlds and an homage to Dark Souls’ storied past.

The Ringed City, a phrase typically associated with the mystical lost city of Atlantis, is just a part of this new realm – your end-goal destination. During a brief hands-on demo, I got to venture into the opening area of this new DLC: the Dreg Heap, the sprawling expanse you see in the trailer above, with crumbling ruins jutting out of mountaintops as far as the eye can see. Dark Souls 3’s setting of Lothric is described in the base game’s intro as the “transitory lands”, and the Dreg Heap epitomizes that ephemeral theme: it’s a landscape jaggedly twisting into itself, as if frozen in time as it was swirling down a drain towards an abyss. It’s a stunning sight, all bathed in the ominous glow of the Darksign-esque solar eclipse that emerges towards the end of Dark Souls 3. It’s still being decided exactly where and how players will access this DLC zone, as FromSoftware needs to work out an entrance method for the small percentage of players who opt to skip the first DLC and jump straight into this one.

As you would expect and hope for, the enemies prowling the Dreg Heap all live up to the pedigree of Dark Souls’ imposing bestiary. (If you want to take on the terrors of The Ringed City without any prior knowledge, best to skip ahead now.) After slaying a few simple Hollow soldiers near the start of the zone, you’re accosted by a new adversary: a hulking brute clad in chainmail with a pot-belly gut made of bramble, a colossal scimitar-like sword, and a black hole where his face should be. Later on, you’ll face off against withered, corpse-like wizards who seem pretty innocuous, blasting easily-dodgeable balls of dark magic at you. But get close enough, and they might morph into a gigantic creature of shadow and leap at you like pumas made of tar, seemingly sacrificing themselves in the process to pounce on you for devastating damage. You’ll also be stalked by the grotesque butterfly-winged fiend (which you catch a glimpse of in the trailer) on multiple occasions, as this recurring monster accosts you with continuous volleys of deadly bolts that force you to run for cover.

The Ringed City also plays with a fresh approach to vertical level design that runs counter to your learned Dark Souls survival instincts: fall damage is apparently not a factor in this realm. Early on in your explorations of the Dreg Heap, you’ll have to set foot on a crumbling ledge that instantly gives way, sending you plummeting 10 stories down and crashing through the stained glass window of a collapsed church. Yet somehow, you survive the plunge with your health bar unscathed (at least until you trigger a nearby creature that tries to pull you under the surrounding gravel). This startling moment is meant to teach you that in this Purgatory-like domain, jumping off a cliff may not mean instant death.

It’s still unclear if there will be some kind of canonical explanation for how you can withstand the kinds of drops that would certainly be fatal elsewhere in Dark Souls 3, but this gravity-driven method of transportation is key to the structure of The Ringed City. The Dreg Heap is just the upper layer of this new zone, and you’ll have to descend into its depths on your path to the Ringed City awaiting at the bottom. As you fall, the ancient stone aesthetic of the Dreg Heap will give way to a variety of environments including sprawling greenery or murky swamps, and these realms may also resemble recognizable regions from Dark Souls games past – not just 3, but Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 as well. It’s an intriguing world structure that evokes Dante’s descent through the rings of Hell, though Dante probably had it easy compared to the demandingly difficult encounters that await here.

If you were at all underwhelmed by the content of the Ashes of Ariandel DLC, The Ringed City promises increased size and scope, with significantly more enemy types and bosses lying in wait. This DLC’s story is closely linked to its predecessor, and FromSoftware has been treating the two as one unit akin to Bloodborne (opens in new tab)’s The Old Hunters or the first Dark Souls’ Artorias of the Abyss (suggesting that Ashes of Ariandel might’ve been fragmented off content envisioned as a larger whole, which could explain its relative brevity). The promise that The Ringed City will tie into and tie up not just story bits from Ashes (here’s to hoping we learn more about the painting woman in the cathedral attic), but the entire tapestry of Dark Souls series lore in general, is an incredibly exciting prospect for those who’ve lovingly fought their way through the franchise’s challenges all these years. You’ll be able to see this finale through to the end when this DLC is added to Dark Souls 3’s PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions on March 28.

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If you’re looking for an article of clothing to proudly wear amongst Souls fans and polite company alike, I’d recommend the Praise the Sun design. Anybody who doesn’t recognize the little Solaire of Astora silhouette will assume it’s just a nice little message about appreciating time in the out-of-doors. Carry around a bottle of sunscreen and offer it to strangers to complete the illusion.

The prices are all offered only in Euros (not souls, sadly), but shipping is offered internationally, including to the United States. Bandai Namco only plans to sell the collection for a limited time, so you may want to order any must-haves before Dark Souls 3 (opens in new tab) hits the US and UK on April 12. And take care not to splatter ichor on them (opens in new tab) on them.

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Okay, so it’s not super overt. There’s still plenty of archaic language, structured not around clarity, but around drama. I’m not sure why else someone would say “ash seeketh embers.” Still, at least now we know three of the big bads coming our way: Aldrich, Saint of the Deep, Farron and his Undead Legion, and Yhorm the Giant.

Keep those names etched in your memory. You’ll want to spell them right when Googling “how to beat [insert name]” when Dark Souls 3 comes to Xbox One, PS4, and PC on April 12.

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