This week, the servers of the popular video game series Final Fantasy, particularly Final Fantasy 14, have been under siege by multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks began on Monday and have persisted throughout the week, causing significant disruptions for players globally. The attacks involve flooding the game’s servers with a large volume of junk traffic, making them inaccessible at times and causing connectivity issues for many users, including login difficulties and session interruptions.
Square Enix, the Japanese publisher of Final Fantasy, acknowledged the attacks early on, stating that they were investigating and taking countermeasures. Despite their efforts, the DDoS attacks continued into Tuesday and Wednesday, impacting various data centers across Europe, North America, and Oceania. Players faced ongoing challenges logging into the game, with some reporting being repeatedly kicked out of the game.
Players expressed their frustrations on platforms like Reddit, with one noting they had been kicked out several times and hoped not to receive any penalties for these disconnections. Another player detailed frequent error messages, specifically error 90002, which indicates connection issues or interference with the game’s servers, further illustrating the widespread impact of the DDoS attacks.
The timing of these attacks coincides with the upcoming release of a new expansion for the game, titled “Dawntrail,” which is currently available for pre-order and is scheduled for official release in July. This isn’t the first time the game’s launch phases have been troubled by server issues; during the last major release in 2021, the servers reached their hardware limit due to high player volumes, leading to similar login difficulties. With the new expansion on the horizon, these recent attacks add to the challenges faced by Square Enix in ensuring a smooth rollout.
