free campaign through the rest of June. The devs have shared some nifty explainers on how busy servers affect wait times, character creation, and instances for new areas. They've also detailed what FFXIV's Error 2002 is, though you can skip ahead in this article to get the full breakdown. Basically, things are busy.
Producer Naoki Yoshida previously told us in an interview that the team was doing everything it could to ensure a smooth launch, even though it was "just inevitable" that you would face a wait to jump in. "There are different elements that we can look at when we're trying to address congestion – there are things we can improve using technology, there are places where we can find people and resources to address that, and there are also places where we can invest money. We are currently putting all of our energy into all three of these points," he said at the time.
Yoshida also explained that fundamentally fixing the issue would involve increasing the number of servers "significantly so that players would be able to without any waiting times", though that isn't currently possible due to the effects of COVID-19 on development. "It's unfortunately the reality that there are not enough semiconductors on the market," he said. "So even though we would like to invest the money into this field, we're not able to at the moment – this is the most critical issue that we're facing right now."
Now that we've laid the groundwork for what's going on, here's what FFXIV's Error 2002 message means and what you can do about it.
What is FFXIV Error 2002?
FFXIV's Error 2002 message pops up if the game's server is dealing with high amounts of players or if the player amount in a single queue for a specific data sails past 17,000 players, though Yoshida has confirmed that the team is deploying an update to increase that number to 21,000.
You'll likely come across error code when you're selecting a character before attempting to to Final Fantasy XIV for Endwalker. Square Enix explains that the measure prevents the server from crashing due to "extreme traffic overloads", though If you encounter the error the developer suggests you wait a few minutes before trying to again. Thankfully, the wait shouldn't be too hard.
Following a surge of popularity earlier this year, Square Enix increased capacity for simultaneous s and a 30-minute AFK timer to ease server congestion, so players should be coming and going quicker than before.
If you're looking for an idea of how popular FFXIV's Endwalker expansion has been so far, the MMO has free week of FFXIV as many players haven't been able to play the new update.
If you're looking for something to read while you wait, the full list of FFXIV Sage job guides.