FFXIV’s Aether Data Center Reaches Maximum Capacity; Congestion Solutions in the Works

Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best and most popular MMORPGs out in the market right now, so it comes as no surprise at all that it also enjoys a very large player base. However, with such a huge community, this also means that its servers are suffering from congestion and long queue times for players trying to log in. This problem will likely also worsen when the new Endwalker expansion launches in November.

In response to the increased congestion, especially in servers in the Aether data center, Square Enix has just announced that they will no longer be allowing the creation of new characters in any of the Aether servers for the time being. To allow for more new characters would result in “login queues taking up to several hours,” which is why they’ve closed it off for now.

Producer Naoki Yoshida also stated that they were currently working on various solutions to help ease up congestion, such as expanding the data centers or adding new servers. But even that comes with its complications.

“As previously mentioned, however, there is an ongoing global shortage and increased demand for semiconductors, and quite frankly, we are still struggling to source the required equipment. Additionally, the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Japan has raised major concerns regarding our ability to travel overseas for on-site implementations. These setbacks have made it difficult for us to cut down on the time required for implementation.
Considering the current situation, we will likely require more time in implementing our large-scale solutions. The circumstances surrounding our infrastructure are far from ideal, but I promise that we will continue to persevere in implementing any solutions we can!”

Square Enix

Final Fantasy XIV is now available on PC and PlayStation.