FFXIV Servers Face Ongoing Disruptions

Final Fantasy XIV North American Servers Suffer Major Outage; Power Outage Suspected

A significant server outage impacted all four North American data centers of Final Fantasy XIV on January 5th, beginning around 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Initial reports and player accounts on social media suggest the cause was a localized power outage in the Sacramento area, possibly resulting from 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 information, caused high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix implemented mitigation strategies, completely preventing DDoS attacks remains a challenge. Players often utilize VPNs to improve connectivity during these events.

The January 5th outage, however, appears unrelated to DDoS activity. Reddit users reported hearing a loud explosion or popping sound in Sacramento, consistent with a blown transformer, coinciding with the server downtime. This aligns with the theory of a localized power failure affecting the data centers housed in that region. Square Enix acknowledged the issue via the Lodestone and confirmed an ongoing investigation.

Data Center Recovery and Future Implications

The European, Japanese, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected, further supporting the hypothesis of a localized problem. At the time of this writing, the Aether, Crystal, and Primal data centers have returned to service, while the Dynamis data center is still undergoing restoration.

These recent server issues add another layer of complexity to the game's ambitious 2025 plans, including the highly anticipated launch of Final Fantasy XIV Mobile. The long-term effects of these recurring server problems remain to be seen.