Final Fantasy XIV is getting more servers to ease those congestion issues you’ve likely heard about, though you may have to wait a wee while before they’re fully implemented.
Director Naoki Yoshida explains in a new blog post that Square Enix will add one new North American logical data centre in August 2022, which will introduce four more worlds. In the summer of 2023, the team will add another four worlds to that same data centre. While Yoshida had hoped to add all eight worlds at once, a shortage in the right parts necessitates that this be a two-phase plan.
There are similar plans to add more worlds for European players to inhabit, too. Four new worlds will be added to FFXIV in July 2022, which will be shared equally between the logical data centres already present. Once summer 2023 rolls around, Europe will get a new logical data centre with eight new worlds attached. The plan to expand the offerings of worlds in Europe is also happening in two phases due to the shortage of semiconductors in the industry right now.
There’s some good news for Australian and New Zealand players, though, as the Oceanic data centre is opening two weeks early on January 15, 2022. Initially, the developers were going to introduce three worlds at launch, with another two coming after that. Due to the popularity of FFXIV, though, players from the region are getting all five from the start. Square Enix is also waiving transfer fees to incentivise players to make the jump.
The team is also reintroducing the home world transfer service on January 26, which was initially suspended around the launch of Endwalker due to server congestion.
Plans are gathering pace to allow you to visit other worlds within your physical data centre. We’ve heard about this before, though the data centre travel system was delayed due to – you guessed it – the popularity of FFXIV’s Endwalker expansion. We don’t have an exact release date, though Yoshida says the feature is pencilled in to arrive with a 6.1x patch.
“Once again, I wish to apologise for the delays to server expansion caused by the global semiconductor shortage,” Yoshida says. “The necessity for communities to separate due to the regrouping of worlds is another inconvenience that may prove unavoidable for some players, and we ask for your understanding as we work to alleviate this issue.”
Now that server queues are dying down, and plans are in place for more worlds, the FFXIV team has decided to bring back digital sales for the MMORPG. That’ll happen on January 25, 2022, to roughly coincide with the opening of the new Oceanic data centre.
Yoshida also touched on plans for the future. The FFXIV director recently sat down with Radio Mog Station and briefly discussed plans for upcoming patches and the team’s thoughts on the current balance of various classes, which was picked up and translated by fans. Now, though, it looks like we’ll hear from Square Enix about that soon.
“We’re also hard at work not only on further job adjustments but other exciting new content for the 6.x series, as well as plans for our next expansion (Patch 7.0),” he says. “In fact, I have a few announcements planned for the end of February, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for our next Letter from the Producer Live.”
If you’re looking for something to do in the meantime, FFXIV’s Heavensturn event, which is essentially the MMORPG’s New Year celebration, is hanging around until January 19. After that, we’re getting All Saints’ Wake – think Halloween, but in January.