Final Fantasy 14 players in specific parts of the world were granted a reprieve in light of recent events, as Square Enix announced that the automatic housing demolition timer will be paused on two data centers. The news came just a month after the automatic housing demolition timer returned to Final Fantasy 14 in Patch 6.3.
The news of the timer's pausing came following a rough news cycle for Final Fantasy 14. From the controversy surrounding a team that cleared The Omega Protocol (Ultimate) raid by virtue of cheating, to the recent news surrounding the creator of the popular GSHADE mod which resulted in the mod's removal from GitHub, the critically-acclaimed MMORPG has had anything but positive news on social media lately. However, a part of the real world is reeling in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and so players affected by it were given at least a small bit of good news from Square Enix.
Following the earthquakes that affected parts of Turkey and Syria, and killed over 21,000 people at the time of writing, Final Fantasy 14 hit the pause button on the automatic demolition timer for players on the Chaos and Light data centers. These two data centers in particular are located in Europe and are home to eight servers each. Players on Chaos and Light that have a housing plot in any of the game's districts will have their housing demolition timers halted for a short time, effective immediately. The timers will resume at the point they were at when the pause was enforced, and players can completely reset it upon entering a home they own.
It is not known when the timers will resume, and Square Enix stated it will make that follow-up decision at a later date. However, players with characters and homes on other data centers, such as Aether in North America and Materia in Oceania, will not be affected by this pause. Those timers were resumed with the release of Patch 6.3 on January 10 and can range anywhere between 30 and 45 days. Final Fantasy 14 players at risk of losing their housing plots will receive an email from Square Enix within days of their timer's expiration.
While the devastating effects of the earthquakes continuing to be felt in Turkey and Syria, popular content creators such as Hasan have chosen to help via charity streams.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5.
Source: Square Enix