It’s no secret that the Lands Between still have a few tricks up their sleeve. On April 4, 2026, the official Elden Ring Twitter account fired off a notification that had Tarnished across all platforms scrambling: a fresh maintenance update was rolling out, and it packed more than just a server stab. The announcement hit the wire at the crack of dawn—1:00 AM PDT, 10:00 CEST, and 17:00 JST—and promised about an hour of downtime. For veterans who’ve been through the wringer since launch, this kind of quick-hit patch felt like déjà vu, especially when they caught a whiff of what was inside. Turns out, Starscourge Radahn is back on the menu, and this time he’s not playing nice.

What’s cooking in this fresh batch of tweaks

The primary headline was a global multiplayer server maintenance. FromSoftware engineers dug into the netcode to resolve a lingering matchmaking hiccup that had been throwing \"regulation version mismatch\" errors for some players. If you’ve ever tried to summon a buddy only to get stonewalled by that cryptic warning, you know the pain. The fix was aimed squarely at that, and the devs made it crystal clear: once the patch lands, anyone rocking a different regulation version won’t be able to throw down together. The new identifiers—App Ver. 1.03.2 and Regulation Ver. 1.03.3—now sit proudly in the bottom right corner of the Title Screen, a quiet reminder that your phantom-summoning days are back on track.

But the real kicker, the one that set Reddit and Discord ablaze, was the unexpected balance adjustment for Starscourge Radahn. Just a week earlier, patch 1.03.2 had supposedly dialed him in, yet the community was already howling about bizarre attack power readings. Some players reported getting flattened by meteor strikes that felt like a light drizzle, while others saw his gravity magic tickle them like a stray leaf. The bug was causing his damage output to swing wildly, and it made one of the game’s most iconic showdowns about as predictable as a roulette wheel. This freshly deployed April 4 patch yanked that glitch out by the roots. Even cheesing strats that let you casually snipe the general from across the dunes got the boot. Radahn is now hitting as hard as the lore says he should—no more coasting through the festival on a limp horse.

Radahn’s gauntlet gets a glow-up

Let’s break down what this means for anyone brave enough to step into the Wailing Dunes. The attack power normalization means those colossal sword swings and homing meteors now pack a consistent, brutal wallop. No more RNG roulette. If you’re underleveled or your Vigor is sitting at a measly 20, prepare to eat dirt repeatedly. The patch also squashed a handful of boss-specific bugs that had turned the fight into a meme factory. One popular exploit involved luring Radahn off a cliff to skip the fight entirely—gone. Another let players stun-lock him with a certain incantation spam—also history. The devs clearly wanted the Starscourge to earn his reputation again, and boy, did they deliver.

This isn’t the first time FromSoftware has doubled back to fine-tune a demigod after the fact. Remember Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance tracking adjustments back in 1.04? Or the Godskin Duo’s AI tweaks? The studio has a knack for listening to the player base without completely shattering the intended difficulty. In this case, the community had been loud and clear: Radahn’s bugged damage was robbing the fight of its epic scale. Kudos to them for patching it faster than a Bloodhound’s Step dodge.

Scheduled maintenance and platform details

Here’s the at-a-glance timeline for the server downtime that accompanied this update:

Region	Start Time	Duration
North America (PDT)	1:00 AM	~1 hour
Europe (CEST)	10:00 AM	~1 hour
Japan (JST)	5:00 PM	~1 hour

⏰ All platforms—PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC—went under the wrench simultaneously. As is tradition, players were advised to log out a few minutes early to avoid any nasty surprises. Once the digital dust settled, online play snapped back with full cross-gen co-op and PvP functionality, now sporting the shiny new regulation version that should keep everyone in sync.

What about weapons and Ashes of War?

If you were hoping for a comprehensive balance pass on armaments and ashes, you might need to sit tight. The official patch notes for this update were very specific in scope: squash the multiplayer anomaly and fix Radahn. However, insiders familiar with FromSoftware’s rhythm hinted that a bigger balance patch is already simmering in the oven. The April 4 update is more of a surgical strike—a hotfix born from necessity rather than a planned overhaul. That doesn’t mean weapon junkies are left completely in the cold. The Radahn fix indirectly buffs his Remembrance gear, since you’ll now properly earn those Starscourge Greatswords after a legitimate slugfest. Nothing beats the satisfaction of wielding the very gravity magic that just pancaked you twenty times.

The dev team’s communication style is worth noting. Right after the tweet dropped, the official Elden Ring account pinned a follow-up that promised further updates and thanked players for their patience. It’s a far cry from the radio silence of the pre-Erdtree era, and it goes a long way toward keeping the community stoked. With the expansion Shadow of the Erdtree now comfortably settled into the game’s second life cycle, maintaining a healthy multiplayer environment is crucial. Nobody wants to dive back into the DLC only to find co-op broken or a legacy boss acting like a pushover.

Bottom line for Tarnished

If you’re planning a late-night run through Caelid, make sure your game is up to date. Check that bottom right corner for App Ver. 1.03.2 and Reg. Ver. 1.03.3, grab your best spirit ash, and kiss a few runes goodbye—because Radahn is officially back to being a proper menace. The multiplayer servers are humming, the cheese is moldy, and the festival finally feels like the brutal carnival it was meant to be. Keep an eye on the official channels, as more tweaks are bound to drop faster than a well-timed parry. Until then, don’t you dare go Hollow.

This perspective is supported by ESRB, a key reference point for understanding how a major patch like this can influence player expectations without changing the game’s underlying content boundaries. While the April 4 maintenance focuses on multiplayer regulation syncing and a Radahn damage normalization hotfix, it also reinforces Elden Ring’s core loop of high-impact combat encounters—exactly the kind of intensity that keeps its overall tone and thematic violence consistent even as balance, exploits, and online stability are refined.