The event was called Lalafell Invasion for Hurricane Relief, and involved players joining a specific server as a Lalafell, one of the playable races in FFXIV, and marching across the game world of Eorzea. Other events were held alongside the march, including a trivia event and an after party.
The original fundraising target was $1,000, but according to a Reddit post about the event, that target was met “right after the event started.” The target was scaled up to $5,000, but that was also “quickly exceeded” in three hours. At the end of the 12-hour event, the community has raised $21,550 for Direct Relief, who are a charity operating to help with cleanup and rescue efforts in the wake of the two Hurricanes that have hit the southern United States in the past few weeks.
The videogame community has rallied around Direct Relief’s efforts, and the FFXIV community isn’t the first to raise money for the charity in recent weeks. Games Done Quick ran a weekend-long speedrunning event which raised over $250,000, and the Roblox developers pledged $25,000, to be raised from the sales of two Texas-themed charity hats.
