In March, Square Enix finally launched Final Fantasy XIV Online for Microsoft"s Xbox Series X and S consoles, over 10 years since the massively multiplayer game made its debut for the PS3 and Windows platforms in 2013.
Tomorrow, July 2, Square Enix will officially release the latest paid expansion for the game Dawntrail. However, people who pre-ordered the expansion got a chance to access Dawntrail a few days early. Unfortunately, the early access to the expansion has also uncovered what appears to be a big issue with the Xbox Series X|S version.
The game"s official website has posted a message from Final Fantasy XIV Online"s Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida on those Xbox problems with the Dawntrail expansion:
We have confirmed an issue in the Xbox version where the game client may become unresponsive when transitioning between locations, such as field areas and cities. Our preliminary investigation suggests that this issue is likely due to a phenomenon known as memory fragmentation.
Yoshida added that the game"s development team is in the middle of a "comprehensive investigation" into this issue specific to the Xbox platform and has made resolving the problem a priority. However, he also admitted it may take some time to fix the issue with the expansion and it could take "several days to address". He added:
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to address the issue.
The slightly good news is that Yoshida did offer a bit of a workaround for this memory fragmentation problem with Dawntrail. The problems don"t seem to be as bad if players sign up for one of the game"s servers that doesn"t have a lot of online users. That means Xbox Dawntrail players may not see as many characters on screen, which could make playing it more responsive. He suggested that Xbox players sign into the game"s Dynamis, Shadow, or Oceania servers until the patch is released.