Final Fantasy 14 eases its inactivity policy due to Hurricane Helene

Final Fantasy XIV players are getting a temporary reprieve from a game inactivity policy that would get rid of player homes if they didn’t log in enough due to Hurricane Helene, which hit the U.S. last week. Starting October 2, the popular MMO is suspending the requirement that players log on every 45 days, otherwise their estates get demolished.

This pertains to all players who connect to the Aether, Crystal, Dynamis, and Primal data centers — which are all North American servers. If your house was already primed for demolition before the change, you can cancel it just by entering your home or doing work on your land.

There’s no end date at the time of this writing, but when Square Enix decides to turn the counter back on, it’ll resume from its status when the suspension went into place. So if you were on a 30-day counter, it will resume at that number.

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“From all of us on the FFXIV development and management team, our hearts go out to those who were affected late last month by Hurricane Helene in North America,” the team wrote in a short statement. “It is our sincere hope that recovery is swift, and those of you who were affected will be able to rejoin us in FFXIV soon.”

Hurricane Helene made landfall last week as a Category 4 hurricane. According to CNN, at least 128 people are confirmed dead across six states, and over 2 million don’t have power. We suppose that would make logging into an MMO a bit difficult.

This isn’t the first time Square Enix has disabled the housing demolition counter. It announced a suspension at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a result of the Noto Peninsula earthquake earlier this year. It also eased the requirement when the latest expansion Dawntrail entered early access.