Final Fantasy 14 Announces Test of Highly-Requested Feature

Soon, Final Fantasy 14 will test Cross-region Data Center Travel in a limited fashion. Starting on March 24 and ending just before server maintenance for the Dawntrail expansion, Final Fantasy 14 players in Japan, Europe, and North America will be able to travel to and from the Materia Data Center in the Oceanic region as part of a limited global test to see how viable cross-region travel will be in the future.

Introduced in Final Fantasy 14 Patch 6.18, the Data Center Travel system allowed players to travel from one Data Center to another, as long as the two are on the same continent. For example, players in the Aether Data Center can travel to and from the Primal, Crystal, and Dynamis Data Centers, since all of them are located in North America. While the technology for Cross-region Data Center Travel exists, Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida stated his reluctance to enable it and cited cultural and language barriers as the reasons why Cross-region functionality was not implemented alongside Data Center Travel during Endwalker.

But after many requests from players, Cross-region Data Center Travel will soon take its first steps. According to Square Enix, Final Fantasy 14 will begin its test of Cross-region Data Center Travel on Sunday, March 24, at 11:00 PM Eastern. The test will conclude once server maintenance for Dawntrail begins in the summer. However, the test will be limited to players from Japan, North America, and Europe, as the Materia Data Center in the Oceanic region will serve as the destination for players to test the new technology and group up with friends from other regions. At the time of writing, the Materia Data Center is home to five realms: Bismark, Ravana, Sephirot, Sophia, and Zurvan.

Square Enix stated that, as part of its efforts to ensure Dawntrail has a smoother launch than Endwalker, the Cross-region Data Center Travel would allow it to gather data and consider implementing a limited form of the feature to alleviate queue