Final Fantasy 14 suspends the demolition of housing on North American servers following Hurricane Helene's destruction across multiple states

Final Fantasy 14 has stopped its automatic house demolition across its North American server following the massive destruction caused across multiple states by Hurricane Helene in late September.

Square Enix usually comes with a bulldozer to remove your house if it detects you haven't been in your game house for 45 days. This gives another player a chance at claiming the land. For the foreseeable, the timer will be paused on the Aether data centre, Crystal data centre, Dynamis data center, and Primal.

The post reads: "From the FF14 Development and Management Team, our hearts go out for those who were affected by Hurricane Helene late last month in North America. We have temporarily suspended the automatic demolition of estates due to the damages.

The timer was stopped in the early morning hours of October 2. Square Enix will restart the timer from where it was before the suspension. If you haven't entered your home for 30 days, it will still be the same when auto demolition returns.

CNN reports that at least 162 deaths have been reported in six states. It's the second deadliest hurricane in the US over the last 50 years after Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of thousands of people in North Carolina and Tennessee are currently without power. Hundreds of roads are closed, and there is concern about the availability of safe water.

Final Fantasy 14's in-game eviction notifications have been deactivated before due to real-world events. In January, housing demolition was suspended on Japanese servers following the major 7.5 Noto quake that killed 401 people and injured more than a thousand others. A year earlier, European servers had their demolition timers turned off due to the Turkiye/Syria quake. It was also frozen during the pandemic.