‘Final Fantasy 14’ is returning to sale with more servers this month

Final Fantasy 14 will once again be available for fans to buy later this month, after it was taken down to fight server congestion issues in late 2021. The game will also return with improved servers in several issues.

Final Fantasy 14 will be available to purchase once again from January 25, at 8 AM GMT according to a blog from the MMO’s director, Naoki Yoshida. However, the producer has warned that Square Enix “may consider suspending digital sales again” if Final Fantasy 14 servers “continue to experience extreme levels of congestion”.

“While some may consider this decision to resume sales to be premature, we ask for your understanding in this matter,” said Yoshida.

In the same blog, Yoshida has also outlined that plans for improved servers have been brought forward. The Oceanic Data Centre is being launched two weeks earlier than scheduled, and will now open with five new worlds on January 25 – the same date the MMO goes on sale.

Square Enix is also expanding the data centres in Japan – although this will not bring any new worlds, it will improve the “overall possible simultaneous logins encompassing all worlds” by “50,000 or more”.

The European Data Centres are also going to be expanded, but they’re not expected to arrive at the same time. The first phase of this expansion will launch with four new worlds in July 2022, however the second one’s not to be expected until summer 2023. The second phase of this expansion will add eight new worlds.

After sharing an update on digital sales and server expansion, Yoshida apologised “for the delays to server expansion caused by the global semiconductor shortage” but said that he believed the upcoming server expansion is “a significant step forward in providing players the best gaming experience possible in FF14“.

In other news, Respawn’s secretive third game is apparently still going ahead following the loss of its director.