FFXIV Servers Endure Significant Difficulties

Final Fantasy XIV North American Servers Suffer Major Outage: Power Outage, Not DDoS

A significant server outage impacted all four North American data centers for Final Fantasy XIV on January 5th, starting around 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Initial reports and player accounts on social media suggest the outage stemmed from a local power failure in Sacramento, California, possibly due to a blown transformer. Service was restored within an hour.

This incident contrasts with the persistent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that plagued the game throughout 2024. DDoS attacks, which flood servers with false traffic, caused high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix implemented mitigation strategies, these attacks remain a persistent challenge. Players often utilize VPNs to circumvent these issues.

The January 5th outage, however, appears to be a localized power problem. Reddit users reported hearing a loud explosion or popping sound in Sacramento, consistent with a blown transformer, coinciding with the server downtime. The Europe, Japan, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected, further supporting the theory of a localized issue.

Square Enix acknowledged the outage via the Lodestone and confirmed that the situation is under investigation. While the North American data centers are gradually returning to service, with Aether, Crystal, and Primal back online, Dynamis remains offline at the time of writing.

This recent event adds to the ongoing challenges faced by Final Fantasy XIV, particularly given the ambitious plans for 2025, including the release of Final Fantasy XIV Mobile. The long-term effects of these recurring server issues remain to be seen.