Come on Namco, embrace region-free multiplayer.
One of the unfortunate side-effects of the Dark Souls migration to Steam appears as if it will be resolved before too long. The transition away from Games for Windows Live happened on Monday, and while DSfix got updated to cope with this change almost immediately, another unforeseen consequence popped up in the form of region locking.
It’s not clear whether Bandai Namco actually did this on purpose, or just left the matchmaking options on their default Steamworks settings, but the upshot has been multiplayer that’s a lot more awkward than it should be (last I heard, a lot of people were setting their region as Finland.)
Anyway, according to helpful Namco community chap J. Kartje, the company is aware of the issue and are looking into it. Here’s how he puts it:
Re: DS1 Region-locking, we are aware and the team is investigating currently. I'll give any updates I hear.
— J. Kartje (@JKartje) December 17, 2014
He follows up by saying “I honestly don’t know the scope/specifics of it all” when asked whether players will have the option to turn it on/off, or select an in-game region. Since Dark Souls has had very little done to it (aside from moving it to Steam,) I’d imagine any “fix” that gets applied would be an external and universal one, but maybe Namco know a quick way to add region options as an in-game toggle.
