Final Fantasy XIV to Add New Data Center Ahead of Dawntrail

Final Fantasy XIV remains the most popular MMO in the game, and ahead of the release of the new Dawntrail expansion this July, the development team is doing everything they can to keep things running smoothly. To avoid long queue times, a new logical data center will be added to the European Data Center.

Named Shadow, the data center will contain three new worlds: Innocence, Pixie, and Titania. Fans of the Shadowbringers expansion will recognize these catchy names.

“We will be monitoring the number of concurrent logins to determine the opening date of Shadow Data Center Worlds, which will be announced at a later date,” the official blog post reads.

Recently, Square Enix released a free benchmark tool for players to test how well their computers will run the Dawntrail expansion. Unfortunately, it was met with some negative feedback, with many fans left feeling as though their characters had lost their spark with the graphical update. To remedy this, an update to the tool will be released later this month.

“We are currently expediting a rework of the environments and light sources of character creation for both the actual game and the benchmark; once that is complete, the current benchmark will be replaced,” Yoshida said in April.

The Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy XIV will be released on July 2, but players preordering the expansion will be able to play a few days early on June 28. The long-awaited release will bring with it a level cap boost from 90 to 100, a new playable race, two new DPS classes, new cities, new dungeons and raids, a new limited job, and an entirely new story arc.