Final Fantasy 14 witnessed a surge of activity over the weekend. The Square Enix MMO smashed its previous Steam concurrent player count, reaching a peak of 47,542. That’s according to the latest data from SteamDB – backed up by Steam’s own published figures.
What led to this spike in popularity for Final Fantasy 14? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what spurred a record number of players to dive into the world of Eorzea. Some point to increased visibility on social media and streaming platforms with excitement for the game’s upcoming expansion – Endwalker – also cited as a reason.
There are others who suggest that the rise in Final Fantasy 14 players coincides with World of Warcraft’s shrinking player count. Although Activision Blizzard don’t publish data on WoW’s player count, the publisher’s number of monthly active users across all games dropped by to 27m in Q1 2021, 2 million down from the previous quarter.
World of Warcraft still enjoys a huge fanbase and is supported with frequent updates and expansions. However, at 16 years old, it’s losing ground.
When it originally launched in late 2010, Final Fantasy 14 was an absolute mess. Square made the tough decision to nuke their floundering MMO though it paid off in the end. In April, it was reported that XIV had hit 22 million registered accounts. Again, we don’t have exact figures on monthly active players though there are clearly enough to justify a fourth major expansion.
Endwalker is slated to launch this November, here’s what you can expect:
- Journey to Thavnair, the imperial capital of Garlemald, and even the Moon!
- New Jobs: Sage and more
- Level Cap Increase from 80 to 90
- Expansive new areas, including Garlemald, Thavnair, and the city of Radz-at-Han.
- A New Tribe: the Arkasodara
- New threats, including Anima.
- New Dungeons
- Secrets Revealed in a New Alliance Raid Series
- New Small-scale PvP Mode
- An Additional “Trust” ally: Estinien Wyrmblood
- A New Residential District: Ishgard
- Updates to the Gold Saucer
- Relaxing Fun in Island Sanctuary
- New Gear and Crafting Recipes
- Expanded Horizons via the Data Center Travel System
You can catch the latest Final Fantasy 14 patch notes here for update 5.57.
In other Final Fantasy news, Square Enix plan to release the first three games in their Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection later this month. They will hit PC first via Steam before launching on iOS and Android. Console ports have yet to be announced.
Final Fantasy XVI is still coming with FF14 director, Naoki Yoshida, on board as producer. We’re also waiting on news of what comes next for Final Fantasy VII Remake. Earlier this year, the game leapt from PS4 to PS5 with Yuffie heading up the first DLC expansion, Intergrade.
It’s an exciting time for Final Fantasy players though we ask whether Final Fantasy VII is already suffering from fatigue before Part II of the Remake saga is even announced…
