Congestion causes FFXIV to be removed from stores

The ongoing congestion issues following the release of Endwalker led Square Enix to temporarily pull Final Fantasy XIV from stores.

Although the game is 11 years old, FFXIV’s player base hit all-time records this year. On December 5, ahead of the Endwalker expansion, the game hit a peak of 95,150 players on Steam. Unfortunately, however, this record-breaking growth isn’t entirely positive for players.

That’s because the current servers are unable to keep up with the sudden growth. Following Endwalker’s highly anticipated release, the problem worsened. Many players have to wait in unreasonable queues, with some citing over 5,000 people ahead of them.

As a result, Square Enix made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend sales for both the Starter Edition and Complete Edition of FFXIV. In addition, the company also extended free game-time to players who currently own it or have an active subscription. This adds an additional two weeks on top of the seven days rewarded last week.

Director and producer Naoki Yoshida delivered the news yesterday via an FFXIV Lodestone blog post.

We apologize for the ongoing congestion that has been occurring since Early Access and the official launch of Endwalker. It’s been nearly two weeks since the start of Early Access, and players are still experiencing substantial congestion when logging into the game.

Naoki Yoshida

Yoshida continues by adding that they will also temporarily suspend new registrations for the Free Trial. in addition, Square Enix also plans to temporarily halt advertisements for the game. Current players will still be able to purchase expansion packs and digital upgrades.

The Future of FFXIV

Yoshida also reconfirmed that Square Enix still plans to release Patch 6.05 on January 4. The update will add a new Allagan tombstone, crafting recipes and a new treasure hunt dungeon. Square Enix also aims to have a roadmap for its plans for a new logical data center and additional server worlds in January.

As of now, it’s uncertain how long the suspension of sales for Final Fantasy XIV will last. While this dampers the game’s recent growth, it will hopefully allow current players to more easily enjoy the content.

Have you had congestion issues in Final Fantasy XIV? Let us know below!

Via Game Informer