Director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV Naoki Yoshida announced that Final Fantasy XIV will go back on sale on January 25th, after the game was taken off the digital shelves in late 2021 due to server capacity issues. This means new players will once again be able to join the ever-increasingly popular MMORPG in the near future. The game will also be getting 20 new servers across various regions over the next 18 months, to help cut back on congestion and expand the possible player base.

"After due consideration of the following factors, we will be resuming digital sales starting on January 25, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. (JST)," Yoshida explained. "However, in the event servers continue to experience extreme levels of congestion, we may consider suspending digital sales again. We are aware that certain Worlds are experiencing high server traffic at peak times, and while some may consider this decision to resume sales to be premature, we ask for your understanding in this matter."

To help deal with server congestion, the devs will also be opening new servers across the various regions around the world, including new NA worlds, Oceania's first worlds, as well as new server capacity for Japan and Europe.

"We believe this server expansion is a significant step forward in providing players the best gaming experience possible in FFXIV," Yoshida stated in a developer blog on Friday. "Work on bolstering the servers will continue well into 2023, expending a vast amount of financial resources and manpower, but we will do our utmost to ensure this endeavor has no negative impact on your ability to play, so we would appreciate your support while you continue on your adventures."

The North American data center expansion will take place in a two-phase plan, as FF devs are still faced with a global semiconductor shortage that has been limiting their ability to quickly expand capacity for the game. The first phase will start in Aug. 2022, with a full new logical data center that will add four new World to the game. The second phase will take place in 2023, adding an additional four new worlds. He also tested a "yet-larger-scale upgrade" that the dev team is considering for the next major expansion, though he did not provide any more details at this time.

On top of NA server expansion, Yoshida announced the expansion of new servers Europe, Japan, and Oceania. These will be Oceiana's first servers, and they are kicking off on Jan. 25th, 2022 with current players being able to transfer to those five new Worlds without a transfer fee. Yoshida stated his desire to provide a "suitable environment" for new players in the Oceania region. 

Read full details of the FFXIV global expansion in the official blog post.