Final Fantasy 14's latest unofficial census is a surprising uptick, and shows I'm not the only one getting sucked back into the MMO again

After taking a wee half-year break from Final Fantasy 14, I have been (for better and worse) deep in the no-life trenches since December. I've been sucked straight back into the world of bunny girls and perpetual Limsa Lominsa drama—the kind I dutifully observe from the sidelines, of course. Looks like I'm not the only one waking their Warriors of Light up from an extended nap, either. At least, if this unofficial census is anything to go by.

It comes courtesy of LuckyBancho, who's been running the census for a hot sec now. Like I say, it's unofficial—pulling data from The Lodestone to determine which characters are 'active' through means like newly registered minions and mounts or changes in HP and experience—so it's not to be taken as gospel. But it's still decent enough for a broad view of how the game is doing.

As it turns out, it seems like it's doing pretty well! At least, significantly better than the census conducted back in November of last year. It estimates that we're around 110,000 active characters up from three months ago for a pretty healthy-looking 930,000 Warriors of Light runnin' around. Roughly 60,000 of those are new characters, while the number of returning players (those who were inactive but are now considered active) is estimated to be around 210,000—that's an 80,000 increase from the previous census.

That last stat can likely be partially contributed to the fact that Final Fantasy 14 ran one of its semi-regular free login campaigns a few days after the launch of Patch 7.41—which added the Savage difficulty of the final four Arcadion raids, a new step for the relic weapon, and a new area for Cosmic Exploration.

But aside from that, Patch 7.4 (which released in mid-December) has been quite good. The main storyline is starting to pop down the breadcrumbs that'll lead us to the main meat of the next, currently unannounced expansion. It "completely charmed" fellow FF14 sicko Harvey Randall, and it's also the first time in a while that I've really felt excited about where this game's narrative is going.

It's also the patch that unshackled us from class-locked glamour, letting me finally wear 'Scouting' armor (once locked to Ninjas and Vipers) on my Dancer, since it's often far more thematically fitting than whatever steampunk vibe my actual role-specific gear often touts. I know, it sounds like a wild reason to bring people back into the game, but fashion is the endgame. It is, in fact, a very good reason to bring people back.

And let's not forget the release of the Arcadion Heavyweight raid tier, the conclusion to Dawntrail's excellent raid series that has done a lot of narrative heavy lifting where many felt let down by what the main story offered. It's an excellent tier, too, though the final fight has divided a few folks for being arguably a little anti-climactic. The final Savage fight though? Now that one is an absolute banger, and I've been having a great time reclearing it each week.

They're all big reasons for someone to come back and start playing again—hell, it got me—and with word of mouth quickly spreading about how the patch was actually pretty good, it's no surprise to see people jumping back on to see for themselves.

And like I say, it's a significantly better position than the game's been in recently. Here are some of the previous numbers from LuckyBancho:

• November 2025: 820,000 active characters (two weeks before Patch 7.4)
• September 2025: 880,000 active characters
• July 2025: 880,000 active characters (right before the release of Patch 7.3)
• May 2025: 950,000 active characters
• March 2025: 990,000 active characters (right before the release of Patch 7.2)

So yeah, this is the healthiest we've looked in… well, almost a year. It's good to see so late into the expansion's life cycle, too. Not to doom too hard, but I don't think I was the only one who expected to see a steady decline/stagnating number in the lead up to the next expansion.

I'm sure the number will inevitably go down. Most of the regular raiders will already have all of their gear from the Savage raids, if not very close to best-in-slot. The Variant and Criterion dungeon set to launch with Patch 7.45 won't be that big a pull. People will likely come back to see what Patch 7.5 has to offer story-wise. And if there's an Ultimate raid, that'll keep the hardcore players happy for a bit longer.

There will certainly be a calm before the storm. But for now, I'm happy to see that it's at least a little on the up and up.