Square Enix halts Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn Mac sales, offers refunds

Square Enix is temporarily halting Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn sales on Mac and offering refunds to those who request it, the game's apologetic director and producer Naoki Yoshida wrote recently on on the game's forums.

"We have received a great deal of feedback regarding the performance of the Mac version, as well as various problems which resulted from the information we provided prior to its release," Yoshida wrote. "For these issues, we apologize."

In a lengthy post, the director explained the constellation of mistakes that led to this decision. The biggest, he wrote, was a failure to communicate system requirements. Square Enix did some last minute tweaks to Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, which changed those requirements. Square Enix was aware of that possibility and prepared several versions of the system requirements. At launch, it released the wrong version.

That wasn't the only problem. Because of "our miscommunication with retailers," Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn was released early and some players received a pre-release build that suffered from poor performance.

Given all this, the game is no longer on sale until Square Enix can fix those problems.

"We have judged that there is still a lack of information on the Mac version and its system requirements," he wrote. "We are planning to make an announcement which will include detailed information on the product, system requirements, and screen resolution. Until this is done, and I am personally satisfied that our users are adequately informed, we will be suspending the sale of the Mac version.

"I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this will cause to those interested in purchasing the Mac version, and ask that you bear with us until sales recommence. For those who already have a Mac version of the game, as service itself will not be suspended, please rest assured you will be able to continue playing as before."

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, a remake of 2010's Final Fantasy 14, was first released in late 2013 and is also available on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. In our review, we called the online role-playing game "an apology to longtime fans and a reminder of why they care about the franchise in the first place." Press play below to watch us play its first expansion.