The release of the latest expansion, Endwalker, kicked off the busiest time of the year in Final Fantasy XIV, but also caused a server congestion that prevented many players from enjoying the game experience—which doesn’t seem likely to improve soon.
FFXIV producer and game director Naoki Yoshida addressed the situation for the third time since the expansion’s release in an official blogpost earlier today. Since the server congestion issue hasn’t been improving over the last week, Square Enix will gift 21 days of game time to all subscribed players, adding 14 more days to the initial compensation.
Related: Starlight Celebration kicks off next week in Final Fantasy XIV
Yoshida also spoke out again about Square Enix not being able to add more servers to face the significant growth of the player base over the last year, especially in Europe and North America, despite the developer’s efforts to do so before the expansion’s release.
“Since July 2021, we have been working towards building a new logical data center and adding new Worlds,” Yoshida wrote. “However, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not been able to make any additions.”
He added the developer was still looking into it and would try and provide a road-map next January so that the players can know what to expect. He mentioned Europe and North America were targeted for a “large-scale addition” of servers.
He also revealed the developer temporarily suspended the sale and delivery of FFXIV‘s digital copies, new registrations for the free trial, and all new advertisements to try and curb the congestion.
Lastly, a fix for error 2002, which has been plaguing the game since Endwalker‘s release by disconnecting the players from the game, will be introduced with patch 6.01. Its release date is set for Dec. 21.
