23-Year-Old MMORPG Closes Server Due to Overpopulation

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Final Fantasy 11, an MMORPG that’s been around for 23 years, is shutting down one of its servers because it’s become too popular. Even though the game is almost 25 years old and has a follow-up game called Final Fantasy 14, Final Fantasy 11 still has a dedicated and fairly large player base.

Final Fantasy 11 first came out in Japan in 2002, and then became available in North America and Europe in 2003. This MMORPG was incredibly successful during its peak, even after World of Warcraft entered the market in 2004. Remarkably, both of these games are still running today, and now Final Fantasy 11 needs to adapt because it still has a large number of players.

Final Fantasy 11 Announces Closure of Bahamut World

With a recent announcement, Final Fantasy 11 stated that the Bahamut server will no longer be open to new players beginning October 9th. Existing players also won’t be able to move their characters to Bahamut. This mirrors a similar decision made in July, when the game closed the Asura server, which was its busiest. Both servers were closed to new players because of overcrowding. Final Fantasy 11 director Yoji Fujito explained that too many players can strain the servers, causing performance issues and lag.

So, Fujito gave us an update on how many people are playing on Asura. He said the player count went down a little bit after they closed things off in July. But honestly, the server isn’t really any less busy, so they’re keeping it closed to new players and anyone trying to transfer over for now. They’re going to keep a close eye on the servers and how many people are logging in, and they’ll probably make some adjustments if things get too crowded again. Luckily, Final Fantasy 11 has 16 different worlds right now, which means there are still tons of options for anyone jumping into FF11 in 2025. It’s good to know there’s still plenty of space for new players!

It’s surprising to learn that Final Fantasy 11 almost ended recently. Square Enix thought about putting the game on hold – only fixing small bugs – or even closing it down completely if not enough people played. But, because players continued to log in, they decided to keep it going, and have even added new things like a service that lets you change your character’s race in FF11. Subscribers to Final Fantasy 14 have sometimes been able to try FF11 with a discount, which probably brought in some new players. This was especially true with the release of the Final Fantasy 11-inspired Raid series in Dawntrail.

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2025-10-03 04:36