Final Fantasy XIV is having a rent freeze

Things are plenty uncertain enough with many folks’ actual housing situation as they find themselves out of work while the Covid-19 coronavirus spreads. While you’ve got bigger real life concerns, at least you won’t need to spare a worry for your in game real estate. Final Fantasy XIV has canceled automated demolitions of unattended player houses for the foreseeable future.

“Taking into account the world-wide spread of the COVID-19 (also known as “novel coronavirus”) and the economical effects of various cities going into lock-down, we have decided to temporarily suspend automatic housing demolition,” Square Enix say in their announcement.

It seems a silly thing to worry about, on its face. It is just a game, is it not? Player housing lots are actually quite competitive in FFXIV and represent a pretty substantial investment by their owners. Spaces are limited, which is exactly why houses can be automatically demolished to begin with. To keep players from squatting on lots, homes that have not been accessed for 30 days will have their houses queued up to be automatically demolished and the wrecking ball officially drops after 45 days of inactivity. Per Squenix’s announcement, if your house is currently in the demo queue you can access it now to halt the process and take advantage of the freeze on reclamation.

It’s entirely possible that some folks are stuck away from their PCs during compulsory local quarantine. Others may just not have time to visit their digital homes while working essential real world jobs. Either way, coming back to a missing home would be a real bummer when you’re at last able to play again. Nice to see that Eorzea’s landlords have the decency to cut their tenants some slack amidst the pandemic.

“We will monitor the situation in the coming days, and inform you all when we have come to a decision that auto-demolition can commence again,” Square Enix says. When it’s time, you can likely expect Square Enix to post about reinstatement of demolitions over on their FFXIV notice board.