'Final Fantasy 14' Breaks Its Player Count Record On Steam

Square Enix’s flagship MMO “Final Fantasy 14” recently broke its record for both average and peak player counts on Steam after an influx of disgruntled “World of Warcraft” players switched over to the massively-popular Japanese MMORPG.

“Final Fantasy 14’s” population on Steam recently reached a new all-time high of 48,476, according to Steamcharts, roughly 2,000 players higher than the previously recorded number. However, it’s important to note that this only counts the number of players who access the game via Steam, which means that the rest of the game’s community isn’t counted as part of the Steamcharts tally.

The total population of “Final Fantasy 14” is significantly higher than what’s recorded in Steam’s database. As of April, the game’s community reached over 22 million registered players worldwide, according to a report from PCGamesN.

According to a rough estimate from tracking website MMO Population, there are around 2.6 million players in “Final Fantasy 14” every day, and the subscriber count has reached approximately 27 million in total.

However, “World of Warcraft” still holds the upper hand in terms of player population. Based on the same website’s estimates, “WoW” has 115 million subscribers, and roughly 3.3 million players are online every day.

The “World of Warcraft” community has been in a somewhat awkward spot lately, with players jeering the game’s new changes and additions. Many players, including the game’s biggest streamer Asmongold, have turned to “Final Fantasy 14” instead of forcing themselves to deal with “WoW’s” latest batch of headaches.

MMORPG community members at Reddit remain torn between the two games, with some players praising “Final Fantasy 14’s” dedication to its story and world-building while others criticized the game’s extremely long main story quest and progression-locked features. On the other hand, the increasingly greedy mechanics and tedious grind implemented in “WoW” served as the last straw for some of the game’s longtime fans.

“Final Fantasy 14’s” story is set to end this year with the release of “Endwalker,” the game’s next expansion that will serve as the conclusion to the entire “A Realm Reborn” storyline. The expansion will feature new areas, two new classes and an epic finale to the game’s years-long story.