With the arrival to Steam on February 11, Lost Ark attracted the attention of many gamers and dominated the popular video game digital distribution service. Namely, this free fantasy MMOARPG had 1,325,305 players at one moment. According to SteamDB (Steam database), Lost Ark surpassed the highly popular (both for playing and betting at Internet bookmakers by the link) eSport Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1,308,963 players at a time) and became the second most popular game in the platform’s history. It also surpassed games like another eSport, DOTA 2 (1,295,114 players at a time), Cyberpunk 2077 (1,054,388 players at a time), and New World (913,634 players at a time). Games like Valheim, Terraria, Capcom Arcade Stadium, and Fallout 4 were moved down on the Top-10 list of most played titles on Steam in a single moment. First place is still in possession of PUBG: Battlegrounds with 3,257,248 players at a time.
Lost Ark was originally released in South Korea on December 4, 2019, and was created in collaboration with Smilegate and Tripod Studios, being played not only in Korea but also in Japan and Russia. Smilegate then teamed up with Amazon, and the game reached the North American and European markets. It remains to be seen whether the popularity of Lost Ark will continue in the future or a similar thing will happen to it as with New World, which had over 913k players at the same time and now has less than 50 thousand players on the servers.
Game Lost Ark Is Available for Playing for Less Than a Week
Lost Ark’s formal free-to-play debut took place on February 12, and as a result, it not only surpassed its previous Steam player count, which was already amazing, but it also cemented its place in gaming history. It’s a tremendous hit, but there’s one question that keeps cropping up: What’s it about in the Lost Ark? And how did this game come out of the blue?
It’s a fair question, and unless you’re well-versed in the gaming industry, we can see how you might figure out that Lost Ark could appear out of nowhere as a surprise smash hit. Even understanding what Lost Ark was before this, we’re still astounded by the stats, which reach heights we never expected from it.
Let’s Explain What Lost Ark Is
The key to the mystery of Lost Ark, which isn’t actually a mystery at all, is that it has previously existed for a couple of years, unlike many games that launch with widespread technical difficulties and unfinished economies and endgames. As previously stated, it’s a Korean product that has made its way to the Western world by a business process that we’ve also described. So it’s been out in the open for more than two years and has had the opportunity to polish and develop, implying that for its Western premiere in Europe and the Americas, it’s far from the unfinished product that most live-service type games are today.
The other piece of the puzzle is figuring out what Lost Ark is. It’s a large game with something for everyone, including Diablo-style combat and a variety of classes (15 in total) as well as spammable skills and ultimate abilities. It looks and plays like top-down Diablo 3, but that game came out in 2012, and fans have been begging for a sequel ever since. Lost Ark does a great job of scratching that itch. However, there’s a lot more to it.
With gigantic universe-spanning numerous continents and an endgame that can be as casual or as hardcore as you choose, Lost Ark puts the “Massive” in MMO. You can farm Chaos Dungeons, similar to Diablo Rifts, or form groups to take on incredibly complicated, extremely difficult raids. There are guilds, PvP, a home base builder, and even the ability to upgrade and control a fleet of ships. The game is simply colossal. And it charges you absolutely nothing to play, unlike Diablo 3, which has a one-time fee, and Final Fantasy XIV, which requires a monthly subscription. Of course, there’s a micro-transaction store with boosts, bonuses, and cosmetics, but it’s not intrusive, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of gaming to be had without paying anything.
