"Final Fantasy 14 Servers Face Major Outages"

Summary

• Final Fantasy 14's recent server outage in North America was likely caused by a power outage, not a DDoS attack.
• Players experienced server disconnects affecting all four NA Data Centers.
• Square Enix is currently investigating the matter.

On January 5, Final Fantasy 14 experienced a major server outage, with all four North American Data Centers going briefly offline shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern. According to reports from players on social media, the server issues were likely due to a power outage in the Sacramento area, caused by a transformer blowing out. The servers returned online within an hour of the initial reports.

This incident marks another in a series of technical challenges for Final Fantasy 14. Throughout 2024, the game's servers were frequently targeted by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which flood the servers with false data and overload them. These attacks cause higher latency and server disconnects, making the game unplayable. Square Enix has implemented mitigation strategies to combat DDoS attacks, though they remain difficult to fully prevent. Players can use a virtual private network (VPN) to potentially improve their connection during these incidents.

However, the recent server outage was attributed to a different cause. On the r/ffxiv subreddit, players shared their experiences just before the servers went down. User Sarikitty reported hearing a loud explosion or popping sound in Sacramento, where Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers are located. Other users confirmed this sound was consistent with a blown power transformer, which likely caused the power outage affecting the nearby data centers. Square Enix acknowledged the issue on the Lodestone and confirmed they are investigating the matter.

Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers Return From Major Outage

The Europe, Japan, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected, reinforcing the theory of a localized server outage. At the time of writing, Final Fantasy 14's North American Data Centers were gradually coming back online, starting with the Aether, Crystal, and Primal Data Centers. The Dynamis Data Center, the newest addition to Final Fantasy 14's infrastructure, was still inaccessible.

Despite these server issues, Final Fantasy 14 has ambitious plans for 2025, including the launch of Final Fantasy 14 Mobile. The game continues to face trials, and the impact of these ongoing server challenges remains to be seen.