Final Fantasy XIV preps for its European data center split starting on April 2nd

It’s not the launch of the third Final Fantasy XIV expansion, but the splitting of the European and North American data centers is one of the major changes being made ahead of the expansion launch. And the first phase is almost here with the European split, taking place on maintenance starting on April 1st. While the game’s other realms will be down for maintenance only until the early hours of April 2nd, European servers will have a full 24 hours of maintenance for the split to occur.

Players will have a day of play time credited to their accounts regardless of their home region to account for the extended maintenance. All characters on the European data centers will also be eligible for free character transfers between April 2nd and April 16th, so if you don’t like where your characters wound up in the changed server environment, you’ll have the opportunity to shift about. And if you’re a North American player happy that you won’t be affected by this and get an extra day for free… well, just wait until April 23rd when that data center split takes place.