During a Final Fantasy 14 expansion reveal livestream, director Naoki Yoshida revealed that the development team is working on a system that will let players visit their friends on entirely different data centers. This effectively means that players will be able to play with friends regardless of what server they are on, even if they’re in a different region.
If you’re not a FF14 player, this might be a bit confusing because of the jargon. But, like a lot of MMOs, players are segregated into different servers with a limited population. Those servers, however, are bundled together on different data centers—some of which are dedicated to specific geographical regions.
Traditionally, players on one server cannot play with those on another, but several years ago Square Enix added the World Visit system that let players jump around servers that were on the same data center. Today, however, Yoshida explained another system is coming that will soon let players jump between data centers, effectively removing the final barrier preventing you from playing with your friends.
Details are scarce, but Yoshida did say that the system would come with a fair amount of restrictions in order to keep servers balanced. He also mentioned that system would likely require players to log out before switching—a big difference considering the World Travel system lets you jump between servers while still staying in the game.
Either way, that’s exciting news—especially if you have friends that are on different data centers. Of course, this was far from the most exciting thing announced tonight. For more information on the newly announced Endwalker expansion, here’s our story.