Final Fantasy XIV North American Servers Suffer Major Outage: Power Issue, Not DDoS
Final Fantasy XIV experienced a significant server outage impacting all four North American data centers on January 5th, shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern. Initial reports and player accounts suggest the cause was a local power outage in Sacramento, likely due to a blown transformer, rather than a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Service was restored within an hour.
This incident follows a series of challenges for the game's servers throughout 2024. The game faced persistent DDoS attacks, resulting in high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix employed mitigation strategies, these attacks proved difficult to completely prevent. Players sometimes used VPNs as a workaround to improve connectivity.
This recent outage, however, appears to be distinct from previous DDoS incidents. Reddit discussions on r/ffxiv point to a loud explosion or popping sound heard in Sacramento, consistent with a failing power transformer. This aligns with the timing of the outage and subsequent restoration. Square Enix acknowledged the issue on the Lodestone and confirmed an ongoing investigation.
Localized Outage: NA Data Centers Affected
The Europe, Japan, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected, further supporting the theory of a localized power problem. Recovery was gradual, with Aether, Crystal, and Primal Data Centers returning to service before Dynamis.
The outage adds another layer of complexity to Final Fantasy XIV's ambitious 2025 plans, including the anticipated launch of a mobile version. The long-term impact of these recurring server issues remains to be seen.
