Summary
- Final Fantasy 14's recent server outage in North America was likely caused by a power outage, not a DDoS attack.
- Players experienced server disconnects affecting all four NA Data Centers.
- Square Enix is currently investigating the matter.
On January 5, Final Fantasy 14 experienced a major server outage, as all four North American Data Centers went briefly offline shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern. According to Final Fantasy 14 players on social media, the server issues were likely caused by a power outage in the Sacramento area due to a transformer blowing out before returning online within an hour of initial reports.
This latest incident is not the first time Final Fantasy 14's servers have endured major technical problems. Throughout 2024, Final Fantasy 14's servers were consistently targeted by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which sent false packets of information to the servers and overloaded them. During a DDoS attack, Final Fantasy 14 players would experience higher latency than normal, making the game unplayable and causing server disconnects. While Square Enix has utilized mitigation techniques to deter the effects of DDoS attacks, there is no effective way to stop them. Players can use a virtual private network (VPN) as a workaround to improve their connection.
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Although Final Fantasy 14 has been the target of DDoS attacks, this latest server problem was caused by a different circumstance. According to posts on the r/ffxiv subreddit, users shared what they were doing in-game before servers went down. In a reply to a post by Reddit user dunphy_Collapsable, another user named Sarikitty stated that a loud exploding or popping sound was heard in Sacramento, where Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers are housed. Other Reddit users confirmed that the sound was consistent with a blown power transformer, which could have caused a power outage that affected the nearby Final Fantasy 14 data centers. The outage was reported shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern, and servers came back online an hour later. Square Enix released a statement on the Lodestone to confirm the issues and stated that the matter is under investigation.
Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers Return From Major Outage
The Europe, Japan, and Oceanic data centers were unaffected, adding weight to it being a localized server outage. At the time of writing, Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers were slowly coming back online, starting with the Aether, Crystal, and Primal Data Centers. The Dynamis Data Center, which is the newest of Final Fantasy 14's data centers, remained inaccessible.
Although Final Fantasy 14 has ambitious plans for 2025, including the launch of Final Fantasy 14 Mobile, the server issues are the latest trial the game had to overcome. Only time will tell what the fallout of the ongoing server issues will be.
- Released
- August 27, 2013
- ESRB
- T for Teen - Language, Mild Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
- Square Enix
- Engine
- Originally the Crystal Tools engine, but currently it's a custom engine using parts of the Luminous Engine.
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Playable
- PC Release Date
- August 27, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- March 21, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- May 25, 2021
- Platform(s)
- PC, macOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
