Lost Ark, a new free-to-play massively multiplayer role-playing game from Amazon and Smilegate, that is in pre-release today for North America on Steam is already making massive waves as well as suffering some first-launch issues.
It’s currently Lost Ark’s head start period for the purchasers of founder’s packs and that means that people can get in before the February 11 start date. Already the number of players on Steam has spiked up to over 500,000 and those actually attempting to get into the game are experiencing long waiting queues and disconnects.
The official Lost Ark Twitter account confirmed the issue and it’s being worked on, but this is not an uncommon issue to hit any extremely popular MMORPG at first launch and the game has certainly had a significant amount of hype even before it reached the North American region.
The game is already pulling down over 222,000 viewers on Twitch as well and has enabled drops – special items rewarded for watching certain streamers that can be picked up in-game – which is probably leading to the record numbers.
The game is an isometric action RPG game, similar to Diablo, that became popular in Korea after its launch in late 2019 and has continued development ever since. It then made its way over to Japan and finally Russia. Amazon Games picked it up as a publisher for its North American and European release.
It is well known for big, flashy, brutal gameplay with extremely badass special effects and presentation. This has probably led to much of its popularity and from the reviews popping up from its current Western release, it has a particular level of polish as well.
The game features a standard RPG system for players to engage in gear collection, skill customization, and progression in order to build up their characters. There are a total of six classes, each of which has three sub-classes that can change the feel of the classes entirely. Within the game, there are also a lot of extra side activities including foraging, fishing, logging, archaeology, mining, and hunting to pass the time.
Although the game is free-to-play, it will feature a cash shop and Amazon Games is selling four Founder’s Packs. Amid the packs are Bronze ($14.99), Silver ($24.99), Gold ($49.99), and Platinum ($99.99). Buying a Founder’s Pack opens up the three-day head start (beginning today), a Founder’s title, an exclusive pet, mounts, equipment, skins, and a number of other perks including in-game currency and increasing other options with each tier.
Image: Smilegate
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