Square Enix to gift FFXIV players 7-day game time to compensate for server congestion at Endwalker’s launch

Square Enix is gifting Final Fantasy XIV players seven days of game time to compensate for the long queues with the early access release of its latest expansion, Endwalker.

“All Worlds across all regions have been hitting the login cap for extremely long periods of time, and the progression of login queues is being slowed dramatically,” FFXIV producer and game director Naoki Yoshida wrote. “We may give additional free game time depending on further developments on the congestion situation,” he added.

The gift will contemplate subscribed players and those who are using a free play period offered with the full version of the game. The reward won’t apply to free trial players, though, even if they struggle even more to enjoy the game since they are not prioritized in queues.

Endwalker is FFXIV‘s largest content patch in over two years, and fans have been flocking to the game to experience the new storyline. This influx of players caused extremely long queues after Endwalker released on Dec. 3 exclusively for early access owners. The gifts will go out on Dec. 7, the same day as Endwalker‘s release to the rest of the public.

The launch of Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest expansion Endwalker gathered much expectation from the community, considering it’s the biggest content patch introduced into the game in over two years.

While only a few servers encountered technical difficulties for short periods of time due to this flood of connections, many players were left on the side and couldn’t play at all during launch day, complaining in various community hubs.

In addition to long queues caused by server congestion—which counted over 7,000 players sometimes waiting for several hours to get through the waiting line—many were kicked out of the queue or saw their game crash due to a “lobby server connection error” and other connection issues, having to start the process all over again.

Although some players could get their position in the queue back by restarting the game fast enough, many didn’t have this chance and were met with an even longer queue. In the community hubs, numerous players started to ask for a compensation from Square Enix. They only had to wait one day before getting an answer from the developer.

The long queue times will likely remain in the following weeks, especially during peak hours. But if there are more technical issues to come or larger waiting queues, Square Enix said it would consider adding more free game time.