Elden Ring Maker’s Owner Hit By Massive Ransomware Hack

FromSoftware’s parent company, Japanese conglomerate Kadokawa Group, was the victim of a major data breach, it disclosed on Thursday. The Dark Souls maker’s owner said it’s currently “investigating the possibility for information leakage” and that the total impact on its business for the year ahead remains “unclear.”

While FromSoftware’s global reputation has ballooned following the 25 million-selling hit Elden Ring (which is published by Bandai Namco), the acclaimed game studio is just one small piece of Kadokawa Group which is heavily involved in book publishing, the video sharing service Niconico, and other media-related enterprises.

“On Saturday, June 8, the servers located in the Kadokawa Group’s data center experienced a significant cyberattack including ransomware, targeting Niconico and the related services,” the company wrote today. “Kadokawa is currently considering solutions and workarounds quickly on a company-wide basis in order to normalize its systems and business activities.”

Kadokawa doesn’t mention FromSoftware anywhere in its disclosure of affected businesses, so it’s possible the studio’s data and systems were not compromised in the attack. Kadokawa Group added that it doesn’t retain credit card information in its systems, and is currently looking to publish an update on its systems and the ransomware hack in July.

This isn’t the first time a FromSoftware partner has been hacked. Bandai Namco also suffered a ransomware attack back in 2022. Several other video game companies have as well, including Capcom, CD Projekt Red, and Insomniac Games. A now infamous data breach at Rockstar Games in 2022 led to the leak of an in-development build of Grand Theft Auto VI. In the aftermath, the studio moved to limit remote work as part of an effort to increase security around its games.

It’s currently unknown what FromSoftware is working on next, though obviously everyone hopes it’s Bloodborne 2.