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Square Enix’s revitalisation of Final Fantasy XIV has helped the MMO to hit 1.5 million registrations.
The original game was dogged by a series of post-launch server problems and bugs which eventually led to a delay of the PlayStation 3 edition and an internal shake-up of Final Fantasy XIV’s development team.
After shutting down the servers late last year, Square re-released the MMO in August 2013 as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. All 40 of the game’s maps were redesigned, a new user interface was implemented and the team introduced a completely new server system.
These changes and others seem to have altered the game’s fortunes, and today’s registration figure is a combined total across North America, Europe, Japan and other PAL territories for both PC and PS3 versions of the game.
Along with the registration milestone, Square announced that the first content update (Patch 2.1) is scheduled for release in December, and will include features such as player vs player (PvP) battle arena, new dungeons and player housing.
Furthermore, a beta program for the PlayStation 4 version of the game will begin on February 22nd, 2014.
While Square’s figures appear initially impressive, its not the first MMO to experience a huge rush of users early on. BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic hit 1.7 million subscribers in its first two month, before seeing a dramatic drop-off in active users which eventually lead to its switching to a free-to-play model.
