‘Elden Ring’ might have similar ‘Dark Souls’ vulnerabilities and cheaters immediately after launch, Blue Sentinel modder says

While most fans are eagerly waiting for the official release of "Elden Ring," the developer of the Blue Sentinel mod sounds the alarm for potential vulnerabilities and the immediate presence of cheaters. The modder, who created the anti-cheat tool for "Dark Souls 3," says the upcoming gaming is likely to carry similar security issues found in the 2016 title.

Last week, FromSoftware and Bandai Namco announced it is temporarily shutting down the PvP servers for several "Dark Souls" games. This followed a public demonstration on Twitch by someone who found a remote code execution (RCE) exploit. Some "Elden Ring" fans have also worried that the same issue might be present in the coming game as it is likely developed in the same engine and network as "Dark Souls." It now appears that those fears were warranted.

Bandai Namco said the "Dark Souls" server takedown was carried out as they "investigate recent reports of an issue with online services." However, in a new report by VGC, the person who discovered the exploit said the security flaw was brought to the attention of the publisher's customer support team on Dec. 11 and Dec. 16 last year. While the company reportedly told them that the issue has been forwarded to the necessary teams so they could work on a fix, they did not receive any follow-up or update on the security flaw.

It now appears that RCE exploits, which could allow bad actors to remotely run programs or place malware to unsuspecting PC gamers, have been present in the "Dark Souls" code for years. Reddit user LukeYui, who is widely known in the "Dark Souls" community for developing the Blue Sentinel anti-cheat tool, told VGC that he previously found a different RCE flaw and reported it to Bandai Namco in early 2020. LukeYui noted, though, that his report "was met with the exact same radio silence."

In the same report, LukeYui said he has seen the "Elden Ring" code during the closed network test last November, and came to the conclusion that the upcoming game is a minefield of security flaws. "There are a lot of crashes and vulnerabilities in Elden Ring's netcode, the exact same ones as in Dark Souls III, actually," the modder said. "So, I suspect it's going to take five minutes for cheaters from Dark Souls III to port their scripts to Elden Ring and make release day a hellscape."

Bandai Namco has yet to respond to the alleged security issues found on "Dark Souls" for years that could also plague the gamers' experience in "Elden Ring." LukeYui noted that a developer helping him with Blue Sentinel has been working on a possible solution for the upcoming game, but the modder said it is unlikely to be ready in time for "Elden Ring's" launch on Friday, Feb. 25.

While Blue Sentinel has been widely praised in the "Dark Souls" community, it should be noted that using an external anti-cheat tool is technically against Bandai Namco's rules. This week, the Elden Ring End User License Agreement was also spotted on Steam and indicated that the game will use Easy Anti-Cheat as its official anti-cheat program. That means using the Blue Sentinel counterpart for "Elden Ring" could also cause a permanent ban from the upcoming RPG.