Square Enix’s 24-year-old MMORPG Final Fantasy 11 has closed off another server to new players after a year of struggling with overpopulation.
While the studio’s newer MMO, Final Fantasy 14 is still one of the most popular games in the genre, many fans have been flocking to the older title. Since mid-2025, a substantial increase in new players has caused the MMO to lock off a number of servers to new players.
For a 24-year-old MMORPG, Final Fantasy 11 was already doing pretty well with frequent updates despite its age. However, following the release of the Echoes of Vana’diel raids in the MMO’s successor, Final Fantasy 14, player counts have skyrocketed with new players and returning fans jumping back into the game.
Last year, director and producer Yoji Fujito announced that the Asura server would be locked away from new players. Shortly afterwards, as player counts continued to rise, the team locked away the Bahamut server. Now, after almost a year of congestion issues, the MMO’s third most-popular server, Odin, will no longer accept new players.
Starting on March 10, 2026, players will no longer be able to create new characters on the Odin server. Additionally, players will not be able to use the Character World Transfer service to convert their characters over to the server, either.
According to an online tracking service, all three of the most popular Final Fantasy 11 servers have been hitting player counts of between 13,000 and 9,000 players, although Fujito has confirmed that player counts have started to drop on both Asura and Bahamut. The fourth most-popular server in the game, Phoenix, currently sits at around 6,000 active players.
Overall, Final Fantasy 11 has almost 90,000 players still jumping into the MMO after more than two decades. With frequent updates, albeit without major content drops, the online RPG is not only still alive, but still has a dedicated community.
“We plan to continue monitoring the number of logged-in users as well as various other factors and will seek to resume the above-mentioned services and functionality when appropriate,” the game director said in a recent statement.
“In addition to developing and making revisions to the in-game content, we are also working hard to maintain an environment where players around the world can properly enjoy the game, so we appreciate your continued support of FINAL FANTASY XI!”
Final Fantasy XI’s last add-on, The Voracious Resurgence, released back in 2020, but the MMO still sees monthly updates. Additionally, last year, the development team announced that they were “preparing for the capacity to create new zones” within the MMO, which could mean that a new expansion may still be in the works for the game.
