Things got very real for an online community of Final Fantasy XIV players in early April when one of their own contracted the novel coronavirus and died of complications related to the COVID-19 disease.
The tight-knit community of gamers couldn’t exactly gather in person to mourn their fallen comrade, who went by the name Ferne Le’roy on the role-playing game’s Zalera server.
Many of the gamers had never met her in person, and now they were all locked down in their homes around the globe. So they did the next best thing and honoured her where they knew her best: in their online world.
Hundreds of players logged on at the same time, equipped their digital avatars with black clothing and umbrellas, then marched in a funeral procession through