Update: Final Fantasy XIV free trials are back

Updated 02/22/22:

After more than two months of suspension, the Final Fantasy XIV free trial is back and open to all players.

the Official FFXIV Twitter Account announced the news today. For the uninitiated, the free trial was suspended in December following widespread overload issues in FFXIV. These problems arose as a result of the rapid growth the MMO experienced prior to the launch of its Endwalker expansion. However, the free trial is live again, meaning players can play through A Realm Reborn and the Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no playtime restrictions.

The original story continues below…

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Original story, 12/16/21:

Square Enix has temporarily halted sales of Final Fantasy XIV due to Endwalker’s ongoing congestion.

The company has offered additional free play time to players who own the game or have an active subscription, adding an additional 14 days to the seven announced last week. This message comes through a FFXIV Lodestone blog post made yesterday by director and producer Naoki Yoshida. Yoshida originally issued warnings of an expected endwalker overload in November, and as predicted, the servers immediately filled, with some players queuing with over 5000 people in front of them.

This isn’t surprising, however, considering the MMO added 1 million new players prior to the launch of Endwalker.

“We apologize for the ongoing congestion that has occurred since Early Access and the official launch of Endwalker,” Yoshida writes in the blog post. “It has been almost two weeks since the launch of Early Access and players are still experiencing significant congestion when logging into the game. As we will be releasing new content in the upcoming patches, I want to provide you with several updates on our plans to fix these issues.”

Anyone who owns FFXIV and has an active subscription on December 21st when Patch 6.01 is released will be eligible for the 14 days of free game time. Yoshida also said that “due to the dense concentration of game hours that far exceed our server capacity, particularly during peak periods,” sales and shipments of both the Starter Edition and Complete Edition of FFXIV have been temporarily suspended.

“Additionally, while players with an active subscription will have priority login, free trial players will not be able to login outside of the late night and early morning hours, and as such we will be temporarily suspending new free trial registrations,” writes Yoshida. “These temporary suspensions will be phased in over the next few days as we work with our retail partners.”

Promotions for FFXIV have been suspended for the time being, although Yoshida notes that some cannot be suspended due to the nature of their setup. However, expansion packs and Collector’s Edition digital upgrades remain on sale for existing players.

The director also reconfirmed that patch 6.05, aka Pandaemonium: Asphodelos (Savage), will be released on January 4, 2022 if all goes according to plan.

“We understand there are concerns about World First races and week one progression, but patch 6.05 will add a number of new elements such as: the Excitatron 600,” says Yoshida.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Yoshida says Square Enix hopes to have a roadmap for its plans for a new logical data center and additional server worlds sometime in January.

While you wait to sign up for FFXIV, watch the latest Endwalker trailer, then read how you can earn an Eat Pizza emote.

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Have you encountered these endwalker-related overload issues? Let us know in the comments below!