FINAL FANTASY XIV Online News

FFXIV players will get a free week because the MMO is too popular

It's a big week for Final Fantasy XIV, with the long-awaited Endwalker expansion launching this weekend in early access and bringing new and returning players back in massive numbers - too many for the MMO to cope with, apparently, which is why Square Enix is giving away a free week of play to everyone struggling to get in right now.

While the official release date of the Endwalker expansion is still a few days away - it properly launches on Tuesday, December 7, in fact - the early access period has already started. As a result, Final Fantasy XIV has smashed all of its concurrent player count records on Steam as everyone heads in to check out the new Endwalker content.

Unfortunately, this popularity has come with a price, as director and producer Naoki Yoshida reports "an extremely large number of players" trying to access the MMO - and as a result, servers have been regularly hitting their login caps, queues have been lengthened dramatically, and there's been "an immense amount of network load which caused Worlds to go down".

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FFXIV has smashed its all-time Steam player record and doubled it in six months

The early access release of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker has seemingly pushed the venerable MMO to new heights, as the game's all-time concurrent player record on Steam has been smashed for the second time this year - and the new count is more than double FFXIV's previous peak from June this year.

Despite being out for over ten years now, or eight as A Realm Reborn, Final Fantasy XIV has continued to go from strength to strength in 2021 alone. The MMO reported over 22 million registered players back in April and has repeatedly broken its concurrent player count record this year.

According to SteamDB, the new concurrent player count for Final Fantasy XIV today is 87,831 - beating the previous record of 67,148 on July 18. By the end of June, the peak was still around 41K, meaning the MMO has more than doubled its concurrent players in just under six months - and added over 20,000 players to its previous record. On December 2, the player count was 40,232.

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FFXIV: Endwalker's early access launch is here - and already has long server queues

It's the launch of a new MMO expansion, and you know what that means: queues. Early access to Final Fantasy XIV's Endwalker expansion kicked off today and players are reporting hours-long waits, frequent errors and more while trying to join servers.

In a forum post, Endwalker's developers say that the game's surge in popularity over the past year means that they're expecting "a number of logins that is yet to be seen since the launch of FFXIV," but that the global semiconductor shortage means they can't fix the issue.

It is our pleasure to announce the start of early access for FINAL FANTASY XIV: Endwalker! We hope you enjoy the new adventures that lie ahead!

Please Be Mindful about Spoilers

During the early access period, there will be no restrictions on what content you can discuss, post, or stream while following the Material Usage License Agreement. However, we ask that Early Access users please be considerate and do their best to avoid posting spoiler-related content as there are those players who may start at the official launch or play at their own pace.

This doesn’t mean that players cannot stream or share the content they’re playing, we just ask everyone to be mindful about what they’re sharing publicly as they explore the new adventures in Endwalker!

* Please be advised that data mining is a violation of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement.

Pre-order Bonus Code Registration

During early access, players who have registered a pre-order bonus code and met the requirements to enter Endwalker areas will be able to begin playing as soon as maintenance concludes. Read the instructions for registering your bonus code and participating in early access.

* Those who do not fulfill the requirements to enter Endwalker areas can still enjoy Endwalker-related content outside of the main scenario if they have registered their pre-order bonus code.

Regarding Congestion During Endwalker's Launch

We would like to share some information regarding the congestion that may occur during the Early Access period and release of Endwalker. Should you experience problems when attempting to log in, please visit the Lodestone for more information.

The full list of FFXIV Endwalker job changes is here

You can't play Final Fantasy XIV right now, as the MMORPG is currently in the midst of a 24-hour maintenance period leading up to the Endwalker release time. But now that downtime is upon us, the full patch notes are here, too, including the full list of job changes we'll see as 6.0 goes live.

You can head to the official site to get the full list of changes for your preferred class - there's far too much to list here - but there are a couple of things to bear in mind. Damage values are getting rebalanced across the board in Endwalker, and you'll see that nearly every melee ability in the game has had its potency reduced. Until we actually see how those abilities perform in-game, we won't know whether they're better or worse off with the new potency values.

There are a few standout changes, even with that in mind. Bards now benefit from their own buffs. Monks no longer have to deal with most of their positional bonuses. Astrologians have had the radius of Earthly Star more than doubled, so they should have much less trouble wrangling the party into those AoE heals now.

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FINAL FANTASY XIV Online News

FFXIV players will get a free week because the MMO is too popular

FFXIV has smashed its all-time Steam player record and doubled it in six months

FFXIV: Endwalker's early access launch is here - and already has long server queues

Early Access for FINAL FANTASY XIV: Endwalker Begins!

The full list of FFXIV Endwalker job changes is here