Final Fantasy XIV has been seeing an uptick in popularity over the past few months, but with early access to the game’s newest expansion Endwalker opening Friday, that popularity is now causing major issues for players. Queues to log in have been massively long, and for some, the game is crashing during this wait period. For those who don’t play, my average queue after the workday is about 25 people, which takes about a minute. During Endwalker? Try over 5,000, with many not wanting to log out for fear of having to wait in the queues all over again. Yesterday, it took nearly an hour and a half to get in when playing later in the day.
The producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV Naoki Yoshida has always been a champion for the fanbase, and as a way to apologize to those having trouble experiencing the newest content, seven days of game time is being gifted to FFXIV players. This gift is only available to those who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription, so for those with the free trial, you’re out of luck.
In a new blog post, Yoshida thanks players for hanging in there.
“The congestion that has continued since the start of Endwalker Early Access has been the cause of many inconveniences to our players. Regarding this, we truly appreciate your understanding and cooperation thus far.
Currently, all Worlds across all regions have been hitting the login cap for extremely long periods of time, and the progression of login queues is being slowed dramatically. Across the FFXIV service as a whole, the number of simultaneous logins has reached the hardware limit, and as a result, logging in has required an extremely long time, especially during “peak hours” when we tend to see increased player activity. For this, I am truly sorry.”
Yoshida also adds that it is possible that more free game time will be gifted to players if problems persist.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker will officially release on December 7 for PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, with early access beginning on December 3. The expansion will conclude the Hydalyn-Zodiark story arc started in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in 2013. Producer Yoshi-P has already stated that the next ten years of the game have already been planned.
