Final Fantasy 14, the subscription based MMORPG from Square Enix, has blown up in popularity over the past couple of months, so much so that Square Enix briefly ran out of digital copies to sell due to the overwhelming demand being placed on their servers.

Over the weekend, players attempting to join the FF 14 craze reported that the option to purchase the game was not available, with potential players instead being placed on a digital waitlist. As of writing this article, the game is once again available for purchase.

While Square Enix hasn't released a public statement regarding the brief pause in sales, many are speculating that the pause was related to the massive boom in popularity the game has experienced. FF 14 hit its record for concurrent players last week, peaking at over 47,500 players. The boost led to some server congestion issues related to the influx of brand new players to servers.

While this theory is unconfirmed, it would make sense that Square Enix would put a pause on sales if they are struggling to keep up with server demand.

The new boom in popularity for the game is in part driven by influencers like Asmongold making the jump over from World of Warcraft, in the process drawing many other new players to the game. However, even before influencers started taking notice, Final Fantasy 14 was drawing a lot of new players, many of whom were attracted to the titles cooperative and friendly community.

What is most impressive about the uptick in interest is that Square Enix hasn't released any new content to drive their player count up. Instead, players are organically flocking to the game that was originally released back in 2015. It's quite possible that Final Fantasy 14 will be the next big MMORPG and could even potentially unseat WoW in popularity.

The next major expansion for Final Fantasy 14 is scheduled to release on November 19th, 2020. That expansion is expected to bring with it new story content, new playable classes, and perhaps an even larger base of players checking out the game.