“Almost no chance” of Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail launch server woes, Naoki Yoshida says, after Endwalker issues
Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy 14’s producer and director, has addressed fan fears of recurrent problems impacting the launch of the next expansion Dawntrail, stating there’s “almost no chance” of server congestion.
Speaking to Eurogamer at a preview event for Dawntrail, Yoshida discussed improvements to servers since the launch of previous expansion Endwalker, as well as the impact of the recent DDoS attack.
“It was a source of great inconvenience for our players last time,” said Yoshida of Endwalker server woes. “Since we are looking towards the future of Final Fantasy 14 and its expansion as well, we have been excessive with planning and preparing servers.
“Now if we feel it is necessary, we can open up the new servers with a press of a button. So I think there’s almost no chance that we would face a situation where we cannot accommodate the number of players required.”
Yoshida also explained how players can now travel to different data servers during non-peak times. “So with that in mind, I think we should be good in terms of preparation,” said Yoshida.
He added, however, that should access be smoother for Dawntrail, it’s not due to a drop in players but because the development team has prepared so many new servers.
Yoshida also discussed the recent DDoS attack from May that caused technical difficulties in data centres across the globe.
“They are very simple in nature,” said Yoshida, “but it’s precisely because of that, that it’s difficult for us to defend ourselves.”
Of course, Yoshida wouldn’t go into too much detail on countermeasures, but explained the team runs simulations to identify possible patterns of attack.
“There is not a zero chance of [an attack] happening,” said Yoshida. “But we would basically work on preparing more defence patterns, so that we aren’t impacted by that kind of situation.
“It is, by nature, just defensive, but this is the way that we are fighting and I just hope that everyone can remember that we are putting in the effort to defend ourselves.”
Square Enix added a new European data centre and three worlds at the start of May, though they are not yet accessible. Plus more are coming to North America too.
Queues for Endwalker were so long, free game time was offered to players to apologise for the long login times. It proved so popular, the game was even pulled from sale.
Dawntrail will release on 2nd July (or 28th June for those with early access) and promises to offer “the very best summer vacation”. It will be released across PC, PlayStation and Xbox Series X/S.
