Final Fantasy 14 Continues to Grow, Reaches 5 Million Player Accounts

Final Fantasy XIV has seen more than five million player accounts registered since its relaunch two years ago, Square Enix has announced.

The impressive milestone comes not long after the June 2015 launch of Heavensward, the MMO's first expansion pack. That is presumably at least partially responsible for the increase in players the game has seen since February 2015, when it surpassed four million.

It's important to note that this five million number represents the total number of accounts that have been registered worldwide; it's not the number of people who are currently subscribing to the game. That means World of Warcraft, even with its subscriptions dropping to 5.6 million, is still likely far exceeding the number of subscribers to FFXIV.

The five million figure doesn't count free trials, however, so it isn't being propped up by those who have never actually bought the game.

While it still might not be WoW, FFXIV's turnaround has been something to behold. What's now regarded as one of the better MMOs around originally launched in 2010 as a complete mess. Things were so bad that Square Enix removed its subscription fee while it worked to fix things and dumped the game's management team.

In 2011, Square Enix's CEO stated that the game had "greatly damaged" the Final Fantasy brand. The game ultimately relaunched with the subtitle A Realm Reborn in 2013, when it received much more positive reviews than the first time around.