Preserving FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.0
A small toolkit of open-source projects for running, launching, installing, and reverse-engineering the original 2010 release of FINAL FANTASY XIV — the version the world stopped being able to play in 2012.
What is FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.0?
FINAL FANTASY XIV first launched in 2010. It was a strikingly ambitious MMORPG that struggled at release, and Square Enix made the rare decision to tear it down and rebuild it. The original game ran through a series of patches up to its final version, v1.23b, before its servers were shut down on November 11, 2012 — its story ending with the in-game cataclysm of the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
When the servers went dark, the game was replaced by a wholly new client and server: 2013's A Realm Reborn. Because 1.0 only ever existed online, it became unplayable the moment the lights went out. There is no offline mode, no re-release — the original game survives only through preservation work.
What is Project Meteor preservation?
The community has spent years keeping 1.0 alive. The retail client binaries still exist on collectors' disks, but a client is useless without a server to talk to — and Square Enix's servers are gone forever. The Project Meteor Server (formerly Seventh Umbral) is the landmark community effort that re-implements the 1.x server from scratch, reverse-engineering the wire protocol packet by packet so the original client can once again log in and walk around Eorzea.
The projects on this site build on and beside that legacy: a ground-up Rust rewrite of the server, a modern cross-platform launcher, a clean-room decompilation of the client binaries, the automation that drives it, and a one-command installer for Apple Silicon Macs.
The toolkit
Five projects fit together so you can stand the whole thing up yourself — install the game, launch it, point it at a server, and dig into how it works under the hood.
Garlemald Server
FFXIV 1.23b server emulator, rebuilt from scratch in Rust.
Explore Garlemald ServerGarlemald Client
Cross-platform Rust launcher for FFXIV 1.23b private servers.
Explore Garlemald Clientmeteor-decomp
Clean-room decompilation of the FFXIV 1.23b client binaries.
Explore meteor-decompXIV 1.0 Apple Silicon Installer
One-command FFXIV 1.0 install for Apple Silicon Macs.
Explore XIV 1.0 Apple Silicon InstallerJoin the community
Get help, share progress, and follow development.
The fastest way to ask questions, report issues, and keep up with new releases across all five projects is the Discord server.
Attribution & licensing
These projects stand on the shoulders of the preservation community. They derive from and credit the upstream work that made them possible:
- Project Meteor Server
the community 1.x server re-implementation this work ports from and is validated against.
- Seventh Umbral
the original launcher and server lineage that Project Meteor and these tools grew out of.
- LandSandBoat
the FINAL FANTASY XI private server, referenced for the XI-inherited combat and systems math.
The server, client, and decompilation projects are released under the GNU AGPL-3.0-or-later. The Apple Silicon installer is released under the MIT license. Each repository ships its full license text and a NOTICE file crediting its upstreams in detail.
FINAL FANTASY XIV is a trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. These are independent, non-commercial preservation and research projects, and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Square Enix.