You may encounter several issues when attempting to play Final Fantasy XIV. An issue that many players have seen is a black screen when they attempt to log into the game, preventing them from launching the character selection screen.
The black screen, also known as the black screen of death, is a common issue within Final Fantasy XIV. Many are used to seeing this problem when attempting to jump into the online game during high-traffic hours or when a new expansion has launched, with many people trying to get into the game simultaneously. You need to know a few things about the black screen and what you can do about it.
What to do about the black screen in Final Fantasy XIV
When Final Fantasy XIV players have a black screen appear when playing the game, there are a few ways they can fix it. One of the easier ways to do it is by attempting to relaunch the game and then trying again. Sometimes, this simple error occurs when they launch the game and can be quickly fixed because their launcher did not correctly receive all the update files. You should run a game repair scan to double-check these files, especially after a recent patch. However, if something else is needed, there are other ways around this problem.
The next step is to check the drivers of your graphics card. Sometimes, the issue can be on your side, and a recent update of these files might do the trick. How you go about this may vary depending on the type of graphics card on your machine, but you can check the NVIDIA or AMD website to see what updates you might be missing.
Another way to do this is if you launch the Final Fantasy XIV game through Steam, close out of Steam before launching the game. There’s a chance that Steam can cause issues with Final Fantasy XIV if you run the game through this application, especially if you’re playing on fullscreen. Before launching the game, I recommend going into the settings of your game launcher and swapping from fullscreen to borderless, as this tends to have fewer issues.
If you continue to have issues, it could boil down to server congestion in Final Fantasy XIV. You should contact the support team, as the developer has been attempting to warn players of high congestion levels during the Dawntrail expansion, such as those encountering Error 2002.
