Final Fantasy XIV has more players than ever 11 years after release
The Endwalker expansion sends FF14's player count to the moon.
Upon Endwalker’s early access, Final Fantasy XIV hit a new high for concurrent players on Steam over the weekend.
Yesterday, December 5, the game reached a record-breaking peak of 95,150 players on the platform. This new number continues the uphill trajectory for Final Fantasy XIV. In July of this year, the game hit a previous record player count of 67,148.
While the numbers from SteamDB are impressive on their own, they do not account for the entire story. The PC player base alone is likely even higher through players who purchased the game via the Square Enix store. In addition, players are also spread across consoles through the PS4 and PS5 editions of FF14.
One attribution for the uptick in Final Fantasy XIV’s popularity is the mass exodus from rival MMORPG World of Warcraft. Popular streamers, such as Asmongold and CohhCarnage, played influencing roles by switching from Blizzard’s game to FF14. In addition to the general dissatisfaction of WoW’s direction, Final Fantasy’s player base rose in correlation to the streamers’ shifted focus.
Final Fantasy XIV has more players than they can handle.
Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XIV’s record player count also created issues for the game’s servers. The current servers simply cannot keep up with the unexpected rise in players. As a result, many players continue to suffer from long queues that sometimes last up to five hours.
In addition, some players have been forced to restart their wait after receiving Error 2002 messages. Square Enix explains that one cause for the issue is the inability to create new servers. The company attributes this directly to the ongoing semiconductor shortage.
However, in an attempt to remedy the situation, Square Enix will reward players with active subscriptions with one week of free game time. The server issues, unfortunately, are unlikely to resolve as the Endwalker expansion receives its full launch tomorrow. Endwalker’s official launch will likely further trump the already unprecedented numbers for the 11-year-old RPG.
Via PC Gamer
