Final Fantasy XIV has attracted much of its players from its lengthy free trial, where players are given the base game, A Realm Reborn, along with Heavensward, its first expansion. With the release of Endwalker, however, the player volume was too much for the servers to handle, resulting in extremely long login queues. Producer and game director Naoki Yoshida then made the heavy decision to suspend new free trial registrations temporarily so existing players can play the game.
Yoshida and his team has not confirmed when will they resume free trial registrations. However, it will likely be when the player volume goes down, which won’t be for a couple of weeks if not months. After all, there are a ton of players in the game at the moment. As of Oct. 2021, Yoshida even reported that FFXIV had over 24 million active players, and a lot more were added during the release of Endwalker.
Related: What compensation is Square Enix giving players for Endwalker server outages?
Existing Free Trial players will also still have access to the game, which means there are people in there completing A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. Some of them might even opt to purchase the remaining three expansions. That said, you’re going to be able to play its Free Trial in a while.
You can opt to purchase the game, but Square Enix has also temporarily suspend sales of its digital copies as well as the delivery of physical ones. Of course, you can still check your local retailers to see if they have left over physical copies.
For more help with Final Fantasy XIV, we at Pro Game Guides have you covered.
