Final Fantasy XIV Sets New Concurrency Record On Steam, Offers Free Game Time As Compensation For Queues
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker hasn’t even officially launched yet but the expansion has already attracted hordes of players to the fantasy MMORPG. The game set a new all-time player concurrency record on Steam this weekend, peaking at 95,150 players at around 11am PST earlier today, according to data from SteamDB. The last time that the game set an all-time record on Steam was in July 2021 with just over 64,000 players.
Keep in mind that the expansion is still in pre-order early access and that the majority of Final Fantasy XIV players don’t even play the game on Steam. Factor in players directly playing through Square Enix’ launcher and those on PlayStation 4 and you’re probably looking at hundreds of thousands of players trying to login at the same time, which doesn’t bode well for queue times. Players are reporting 6k+ player queues, ridiculously long wait times, and login errors that immediately send you back to the back of the line.
Executive Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida says that they’re aware of the issue and have given players 7 days of free game time as compensation. The free time will be usable when the expansion officially launches on December 7th and will also be available to players with 30-day subscriptions.
“Across the FFXIV service as a whole, the number of simultaneous logins has reached the hardware limit, and as a result, logging in has required an extremely long time, especially during ‘peak hours’ when we tend to see increased player activity. For this, I am truly sorry,” said Yoshida.
In the meantime, players can check out a timetable of peak hours for each region here so they can schedule their play time around them. Yoshida says that they’re also working on fixing other in-game issues, including miscalculated XP rewards, udyeable Paladin gear, and buggy NPCs.
If you’re still stuck in queue, why not chill with Sia’s interpretation of Fly Me To The Moon, especially made for the upcoming expansion.
