FF14 Dawntrail’s launch wasn’t a huge disaster, and I’m pleasantly surprised

Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail’s launch queues have been nothing short of extraordinary. After a perfect storm of COVID lockdowns and unprepared servers hit Endwalker’s launch in 2021, Square Enix came prepared this time. The servers might be full, but playing the MMORPG on an expansion’s launch day has never been easier.

All players’ biggest fear heading into Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail’s launch was the queue times. Everyone was expecting server disconnections and hours of waiting to get into the MMORPG, but that hasn’t been the case so far. I was in a 450-person queue for five minutes the moment servers came back online, and had a normal line of 21 players later in the evening.

Square Enix’s Dawntrail congestion plans have paid off, and that’s despite incredibly high demand. “Since the start of early access on Friday June 28, 2024, we have been experiencing extraordinary player counts, but the logins have been exceptionally smooth thus far due to our data center expansions, additional worlds, and improvements to server performance,” Square Enix writes.

“The login queues are stable, and although they may appear to be moving slowly or the countdown numbers may not seem to be progressing, we have confirmed the queue is steadily moving forward as intended.”

Dawntrail’s server success is surprising, as a few years earlier the previous expansion, Endwalker, massively struggled at launch. Final Fantasy 14 still had lengthy queues a week after Endwalker came out, and the game was so busy Square Enix had to stop selling it. Dawntrail could struggle over the early access launch weekend, but if the first day is any indication, the servers are much improved.

Data center travel has played a large part in this success. New worlds designed specifically for congestion overflow have eased the burden, and there are more servers than ever before to accommodate the 30 million players alongside those playing on Xbox for the first time. Dawntrail’s launch could have been a disaster of unstable servers, but it’s miraculous.

The Steam stats back this up. Dawntrail’s launch day peak is 92,039 players, just a few thousand behind Endwalker’s 95,150 record. Despite the minor difference, Dawntrail has had nowhere near the same number of problems. Granted, Endwalker was released in the height of COVID lockdowns, but in 2024 we have more players than ever, and FF14 is holding strong.

It’s not all been smooth sailing, though, as the Syrcus Tower alliance raid is suddenly impossible to clear thanks to a bug in Dawntrail and 7.0. The Amon boss fight doesn’t spawn in ice blocks to hide behind, resulting in a party wipe that’s impossible to get past. Square Enix is aware of the bug currently implementing fixes for it, but some dedicated parties have managed to beat Amon in the meantime by sheer brute force.

I started playing Final Fantasy 14 after Endwalker, and I’m totally floored by how good Dawntrail’s launch is. I’d heard stories of devastating queue times that you’d be waiting in all day, and fully expected the new expansion to be similar. So far there’s been nothing of the sort, and I’ve been enjoying all the new content with ease.

With Tural finally here our Final Fantasy 14 Viper and Final Fantasy 14 Pictomancer job guides completely break down the new classes. There’s also a Final Fantasy 14 free Fantasia to grab if you want to change your character’s look.

You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.