FFXIV Servers Encounter Significant Disruptions

Final Fantasy XIV North American Servers Hit by Power Outage, Not DDoS Attack

Final Fantasy XIV experienced a significant server outage affecting all four North American data centers on January 5th. Initial reports suggest the cause was a localized power outage in Sacramento, California, possibly due to a blown transformer, rather than a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Service was restored within an hour.

This event differs from the numerous DDoS attacks plaguing the game throughout 2024. DDoS attacks, which flood servers with false traffic, caused high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix employed mitigation strategies, these attacks remain difficult to fully prevent. Players often utilize VPNs to circumvent these issues.

The January 5th outage, however, appears to be a result of a physical infrastructure problem. Reddit users reported hearing a loud explosion in Sacramento, consistent with a blown transformer, around the time of the outage. This aligns with the geographical limitation of the outage; European, Japanese, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected.

Square Enix acknowledged the issue via the Lodestone and confirmed an ongoing investigation. At the time of this writing, servers are gradually returning to service, beginning with Aether, Crystal, and Primal, while Dynamis remains offline.

The ongoing server challenges cast a shadow over the ambitious plans for Final Fantasy XIV in 2025, including the highly anticipated mobile release. The long-term consequences of these recurring issues remain to be seen.