Final Fantasy 14 pulled from sale following server issues

Square Enix’s wildly popular MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 has been pulled from sale, as the game’s servers have struggled to meet demand.

The move comes after the release of the game’s latest expansion, Endwalker, which has resulted in tremendously long queues to log in to the game’s servers – with queues sometimes taking several hours.

This has, most importantly, affected MCV/DEVELOP staff writer Chris Wallace, who has had to wait an hour to log in to level up his Weaving skill. I’m not even AT Endwalker yet. Nobody has suffered like my character, Claudius Chocobloke, has suffered.

To deal with the excessive demand, Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy 14’s director and producer, announced that the game would be temporarily pulled from storefronts. This applies to those attempting to join the game via a free trial.

“These temporary suspensions will be phased in over the next few days as we work with our retail partners,” Yoshida said. “We will be coordinating with them as swiftly as possible, but please bear in mind that this will be a gradual process.

“We will also be suspending all new advertisements. However, it will not be possible to suspend some of the advertisements due to the nature of how they were set up. We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter.”

Square Enix is looking to build a new logical data centre to meet demand, but these efforts have been frustrated by the global semiconductor shortage.

Pray for Chocobloke.