Final Fantasy XIV's North American servers experienced a significant outage on January 5th, impacting all four data centers. Initial reports and player accounts suggest the cause was a local power outage in Sacramento, possibly due to a blown transformer, rather than a DDoS attack. The outage, occurring around 8:00 PM Eastern, lasted approximately one hour.
Unlike previous widespread server issues attributed to persistent DDoS attacks throughout 2024, this incident appears to be a localized problem. DDoS attacks, which flood servers with false information, caused high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix employs mitigation strategies, completely preventing these attacks remains a challenge. Players sometimes utilize VPNs to improve their connection during such events.
The consistency of reports of a loud explosion in Sacramento, the location of the NA data centers, strongly supports the power outage theory. Square Enix acknowledged the issue on the Lodestone and is currently investigating. The European, Japanese, and Oceanic data centers remained unaffected, further indicating a localized problem.
Recovery was gradual, with Aether, Crystal, and Primal data centers returning to service before Dynamis. This recent outage adds another challenge to the game's already ambitious plans for 2025, including the anticipated launch of Final Fantasy XIV Mobile. The long-term effects of these recurring server problems remain to be seen.
