Final Fantasy XIV is the most popular MMO out there right now. It’s hard to not see why that’s the case thanks to the sheer amount of content that’s in the game — much of it can be added for free — and a storyline that fans of the game rave about. Fans have talked up the plot of the game and how each expansion seems to be better than the last. The most recent one, Endwalker, is receiving praise in the community and it’s helping draw in both old and new players. In fact, so many people are trying to play the game right now that, despite the expansion being released almost a month ago, the servers are still struggling to keep up.
Typically, when a game launches a huge expansion, the servers take a hit those first few weeks before eventually settling down as players stop trying to all play at once. The problem is that isn’t happening right now with Final Fantasy XIV. People are still showing up, which led to the developers of the game making a surprising decision. To keep servers in a more stable place, players that are currently in the free trial can only play the game during late night and early morning hours. Also, any new players trying to register or purchase the game will temporarily not be able to do so. Basically, the game is at capacity and nobody new can get in for a little.
We'd like to share an update from #FFXIV Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida on the ongoing congestion, additional game time compensation, suspension of sales, error codes, and our upcoming plans. https://t.co/3WcXX6eVkf
— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_EN) December 16, 2021
“Players are currently experiencing extremely long wait times due to the dense concentration of play hours which far exceed our server capacity, especially during the peak times, and so we have decided to temporarily suspend the sale and delivery of FINAL FANTASY XIV Starter Edition and Complete Edition,” Naoki Yoshida, the game’s producer and director, said in a statement. “Additionally, although those with an active subscription are prioritized to log in, Free Trial players are unable to log in outside of late night and early morning hours, and so we will also temporarily suspend new registrations for the Free Trial.”
This is shocking, because games never deny new players, especially ones that are actively trying to spend money on the game. But when nobody can get into the game, we understand why a decision like this has to be made. We figure the temporary pause on new registrations and sales will not last too long, but when that will be wasn’t listed in the blog post.
This just goes to show how popular Final Fantasy XIV is right now. We recently talked about how it was one of the best free to play games of 2021, because of the absurd amount of content that you can get without paying anything, but obviously that option isn’t going to be viable to anyone for a brief period of time.