Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is So Good That It Had to be Pulled From Sale
The Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker DLC turned out to be so good that Square Enix was forced to temporarily pull the game from digital and stationary stores.
- Square Enix has pulled Final Fantasy XIV from sale until the problem of overcrowded servers is resolved;
- This includes trial versions of FFXIV and owners of those will only be able to log into the game at certain times.
Square Enix has learned the hard way how true the "suffering from success" meme can be. The company temporarily pulled Final Fantasy XIV from sale - both digital and boxed editions. Option to download the trial version of the game has also been disabled, and people who already own it can only log in "late at night and early in the morning".
Product recalls usually involve defects by design, and very serious ones at that. However, in this case the problem is completely different. The culprit is... the excessive success of the Endwalker expansion. Already in early access the DLC provided FFXIV a place among the most popular titles on Steam. The number of players has now dropped slightly, but the game is still in the top 20 on Valve;s platform and is doing much better than it has in the last seven years. Let's not forget that the title is also available on PS4 and PS5.
Unfortunately, the game's popularity has exceeded the capacity of its servers. Those willing to play Final Fantasy XIV had to reckon with standing in lines just to join the server. We're not talking about minutes, but often long hours. Although players point out that the situation looks better than in other popular MMORPGs (and not only them) after similar debuts, but it's little consolation for people who are informed by the game that they've been assigned place number 7000 on the waiting list. Especially since the problems have been continuing for two weeks now, for which Naoki Yoshida, the director of FFXIV. apologized personally.
Square Enix's decision to suspend the game's distribution is all the more painful because the Endwalker expansion was received with great enthusiasm by the gamers. The restrictions will remain in place until the problems are resolved, which - given the game being pulled from retail stores as well - will likely take more than, say, a few days (or even weeks).
