The 65th Final Fantasy XIV Letter from the Producer LIVE lasted a marathon 14 hours. During the show’s introduction, the team divulged pre-orders for the upcoming Endwalker expansion are up 160-180% when compared to the Shadowbringer expansion. With player numbers still growing significantly, the team also announced they will be making a multi-million investment in server infrastructure.
A new Oceania data center for Australia and New Zealand will be introduced with the Endwalker expansion but this is just one of the many steps Square Enix is having to take to make room for all of the new players. While the team didn’t specify in which currency the multi-million server infrastructure investment is measured, they did say it wouldn’t be ready before version 6.0 is released alongside the Endwalker expansion. The game hit 22 million players back in April but the team is aiming to hit 30 million registered players. With the number of players still growing significantly the team has promised at least five more years of content for the game.
Endwalker will be released on November 23, but those who pre-order the expansion will be able to get early access from November 19. The new content to be introduced in Endwalker includes a new Reaper job, the Male Viera playable race, a new city called Old Sharlayan as well as the Labyrinthos and Mare Lamentorum areas, and the Loporrits tribe. The Magus Sisters will be a formidable new foe and new Myths of the Realm alliance raids will provide new challenges.
To encourage players to return to the game before the expansion is released, there’s a free login campaign running right now. Those who had previously purchased a subscription to the game but whose accounts are now marked as inactive can login for free for any 14 day period from now until 7:59 am PDT on August 23. Once the free-play period is over, players will need to purchase a subscription to the game once again if they want to continue playing.
[Source: Final Fantasy Letter from the Producer Live XIV via ResetEra, Final Fantasy XIV]
