Square Enix has announced that the automatic demolition in the housing wards of Final Fantasy XIV has been temporarily deactivated.
In an official post on the game’s “Lodestone” website, the developers identified the cause for the decision with the fires that have been ravaging the area of Los Angeles.
“From all of us on the FFXIV development and management team, our hearts go out to those who were affected by the mountain fires that occurred around Los Angeles in North America.
Due to the damages and other factors, we have decided to temporarily suspend the automatic demolition of estates.”
At the moment, no information has been provided about when auto-demolition will resume. Square Enix will monitor the situation in the coming days and inform players when a decision on this topic is taken.
If you’re unfamiliar with the feature, auto-demolition removes houses that have been deemed vacant by the system due to prolonged absence of their owners, and then puts the land back on sale.
The system was created to mitigate the chronic lack of available housing plots in the dedicated wards of many servers, ensuring that inactive players don’t hold real estate that can be allocated to active ones.
Of course, the system isn’t perfect, but it is what it is. If you have a house in Final Fantasy XIV and are prone to be inactive for prolonged periods, it’s likely a good idea to keep an eye on the Lodestone to make sure the inevitable reactivation of the system doesn’t catch you off-guard.
Final Fantasy XIV is currently available for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series X|S. The latest expansion, titled “Dawntrail” was released in early July 2024.
Lately, we also saw interesting screenshots of new features shown at PAX West, and even more images and details were shared a few weeks ago during the Seoul Fan Festival in South Korea.