Dark Souls' servers were taken down in January as developer FromSoftware discovered a security issue that needed investigating. Jump ahead seven months to August and the servers are finally coming back online - at least, the Dark Souls 3 ones.
That leaves Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls 2 in limbo for now, but you'll be able to jump back into 3's online world as of today. That means you can invade other players, be invaded, take part in jolly co-operation, and leave behind messages that will definitely help others and not trick them into jumping off ledges. Definitely.
The aforementioned security issue was a remote code execution (RCE) that would allow someone to take control of your PC. This exploit was so widespread among FromSoft games that it's even been found in Sekiro, though there's no way to trigger it. It was fixed for Elden Ring, meaning that online features weren't delayed on launch, but FromSoftware took the servers down to protect players' privacy in Dark Souls where it was initially discovered.
"We plan to restore online service for each game progressively, bringing back servers for Dark Souls 3 once we complete the necessary work to complete the problem," FromSoft stated. "We will provide additional updates as soon as the restoration schedule is finalised. We want to thank all our players for your patience and understanding as we work to fix this issue."
Dark Souls 3's community recently held its yearly Return to Lothric event, something that all Souls games do to reinvigorate the online community. It asks participants to invade and summon more, rather than plodding along solo. But this year players had to use third-party servers for PC which limited its reach and connection with those outside the community's forums and socials. Perhaps, with the servers returning, we'll see a bigger boom.