On December 15th, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware released a patch that would turn your Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition from Games for Windows Live to Steamworks. It might seem negligible but if you've invested hundreds of hours into the game spread across 10 characters, you'd probably be sad to see all that hard work disappear on February 16th right?
On that date, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition will be undergoing a shift to Steamworks which means Achievements for the game will show up under Steam instead of GFWL. Since Save files were also housed under GFWL, you'll need to follow a process to turn your game into the Steamworks version ahead of time, so you don't lose any of that progress.
Bandai wrote out simple steps on how to go about it:
For users who purchased a Game for Windows live version from a retailer (Disc) or Games for Windows Live Marketplace (Digital):
- We recommend that you add Dark Souls™ Prepare To Die to your Steam account using your serial
- Launch the game and connect to Games for Windows Live.
- Run the game (only the currently signed-in user’s Save Data and Achievements can be transferred to Steam).
- Close the Game.
- Right click on your game in the Steam Library, go into Properties, check that the BETA tab is set to “dsptde-2.0-“
- Launch Dark Souls™ Prepare To Die Edition v2.0 from Steam
- The game will look for previous Save Data and Achievements. If Save Data and Achievements are detected on your computer, you should be able to continue your progress in the game. Achievements should be unlocked in Steam.
For users who purchased a Game for Windows live version from Steam:
- Launch the game and connect to Games for Windows Live.
- Run the game (only the currently signed-on user’s progress can be transferred to Steam).
- Close Games for Windows Live
- Right click on your game in the Steam Library, go into Properties, check that the BETA tab is set to “dsptde-2.0-“
- Launch Dark Souls™ Prepare To Die Edition v2.0 from Steam
- Sign in using the same live profile used in step-2 to import your Save Data and Achievements from the Games for Windows Live version to the Steam version for the same profile (gamertag)
- The game will look for previous Save Data and Achievements. If they are detected on your computer, you should be able to continue your progress in the game and achievements should be unlocked in Steam.
CASE 2: For users who purchase Dark Souls™ Prepare To Die Edition between December 15th and February 16th:
- Once the game is downloaded, right click on your game in the Steam library, go into properties, check that the BETA tab is set to “dsptde-2.0-“. The game may ask you to create a Game for Wwindows Live Account, simply discard this request
- Launch Dark Souls™ Prepare To Die Edition v2.0 from Steam.
So there you go. It's relatively easy, and your steps might vary slightly. For example, after updating my Dark Souls copy to v2.0, I never had to actually sign back into GFWL, I was finished at that point. Either way, try to follow the steps to the best of your ability and you'll be good to go come February 16th.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition Steamworks Instructions