Final Fantasy XIV has been building steam in the MMORPG sector for some time, but has now reached such a high that users are reporting the game is temporarily sold out on Square Enix’s digital storefront.
Have you tried the critically-acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV that has a free trial up to level 60 including the Heavensward expansion? Well, if you haven’t, you may not be able to check it out for a few days.
Square Enix has either temporarily suspended purchases of Final Fantasy XIV Complete Edition, or run out of pregenerated licenses. Product pages for the Complete Edition lead to a waiting list instead of allowing customers to add the game to their carts, as users began reporting overnight.
Other, less ideal bundles of the game are still available through the company’s website, while the Complete Edition is available on Steam. The PS4 and PS5 versions still appear available through the PlayStation Store, as well. However, the game’s servers were at capacity overnight, which disabled new character creation on all servers at one point. Things seem to have evened out now, but a few servers are still listed as too congested for new characters as of this writing.
What’s causing this unprecedented spike? There seem to be a few contributing factors. Overall, Final Fantasy XIV has seen tremendous growth over the last few years through its Shadowbringers expansion. Anticipation is high for the next expansion, Endwalker, which is due in November, especially with the release of its benchmark software over the weekend.
On top of its own momentum, it appears to be picking up detractors from World of Warcraft. Blizzard has long led the genre, but recent expansions have been pushing players away with its ever-complicated gear farming process. Final Fantasy XIV is not grind-free, but its trial version offers an astounding amount of content for free, allowing players to play the core game and first expansion, up to level 60, before committing. If people are looking to get their MMORPG fix elsewhere, Square Enix offers a pretty forgiving refuge.
Overall, the game saw a massive spike in Twitch viewership last month—according to TwitchTracker, its average viewers has sat around 4k for the past two months, but climbed to 6.5k in April, 7.2k in May, and 35.8k in June, almost hitting 10 million total hours viewed in one month. One high-profile WoW detractor, the streamer Asmongold, may have played a role in this, as he announced he would start Final Fantasy XIV in early June. His first stream on July 3 attracted 212k max viewers alone, and created some drama as other players attempted to “streamsnipe” him.
Whatever the reason for the growth, hopefully Square Enix can get the digital supply replenished soon. The team has already stablized the data centers, allowing for new characters again, but if demand remains high this might happen again—so be patient, fledgling Warriors of Light.
[UPDATE 7/13: Looks like Square Enix has flipped the switch back on and Final Fantasy XIV Complete Edition is available through their store again. As of this moment, almost half of the Japanese and European servers are barred from creating new characters, but this is only the case for three North American servers.]
