Lost Ark draws over 1 million concurrent players in less than 48 hours

[Jimmy2x]

The big picture: The hugely popular South Korean hit Lost Ark was recently released worldwide on the Steam platform. The February 11th release has already been an enormous success, attracting more than one million concurrent players in just over two days. The game's rise in popularity has quickly catapulted it onto Steam's list of most popular games, putting it in the same company as well-established titles such as DOTA2 and CSGO.

Lost Ark is anything but a shiny new game from Amazon. The top-down isometric action RPG was originally released to South Korean audiences in 2019. The MMO game was favorably received and selected for the 2019 President's Award, the top honor at the annual Korea Game Awards. The game's recent worldwide release as a free-to-play title on Steam from Amazon and Smilegate has been nothing short of a success, with the game already becoming one of Steam's most-played titles ever.

Despite Lost Ark's early access paywall, the game sold over 500,000 copies. Within two days of the game's free-to-play (F2P) release, Lost Ark gained an enormous following and stacked up more than 1 million concurrent players. As of this writing, the game's peak concurrent player count sits at just over 1.3 million.

The Lost Ark provides players with the opportunity to create one of several customizable hero classes, each with its own sets of unique skills. Like other games in the genre, players must hack, slash, and blast their way through hordes of enemies to earn experience and develop new skills. Upon reaching a certain level, players gain access to end-game content and other unique challenges.

Unlike other games, Lost Ark provides the player with far more options to customize and personalize their character. New players can select their character's gender, facial features, skin tones, outfits, hairstyles, and even eye colors.

According to the game's developers, players who really want to make their avatars stand out from the crowd can buy various cosmetic items via microtransactions. Players can also obtain the same rare and special items available via the game store just by playing. Of course, like most games of this type, getting the bling they desire can be a long, grinding road.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93380-lost-ark-draws-over-1-million-concurrent-players.html

 

[VitalyT]

Our Tacco place draws more people to toilet after 30 mins of consumption.

 

[JeffSSig]

 

[Hexic]

It's another grindy Korean wash/lather/repeat game that Western MMO users will inevitably get burned out on quickly because they aren't used to the cultural grind fest that is common out east.

Still waiting for an MMO that is actually innovative. Maybe Ashes of Creation will impress.

 

[Dunkerton]

Game is solid and will be around for a long time. PVP in the game has a LOT of opportunities, and the playing field is totally level and not gear-dependent. If you completely remove the MMO aspect the game holds up as a complete PVP arena fighter. Very satisfied with spending $0 on this.

 

[dangh]

It's a very nice and will made game with a lot of activities. I enjoy it very much, and I haven't had such fresh fun in mmo for ages.

 

[Puiu]

I feel like all twitch streamers are playing this.

 

[Phaetos]

It's another grindy Korean wash/lather/repeat game that Western MMO users will inevitably get burned out on quickly because they aren't used to the cultural grind fest that is common out east.

Still waiting for an MMO that is actually innovative. Maybe Ashes of Creation will impress.

I've been playing it since it release Friday and I honestly don't feel it to be all that grindy. Hardly any mission is the typical WoW "Go get me 35 feathers" in an area where 200 users are trying to kill the damn birds and you have to wait around for anything to respawn and most monsters drop more than 1 of the required item. The respawn time is literally sub-10sec for monsters.

 

[erickmendes]

Played it for like 4 hours... It is so generic and repetitive, like if you get a high level Diablo 3 experience and do it ad eternum... There's some glimpse of innovation, like some hard points where you interact in different way with like the terrain... Still, it's so utterly repetitive, like most MMORPGs, that I can't take more than 4 hours of it...

Or perhaps I'm getting too old... (still play Mobas, at least the human players give you a variety of new challenges...)

Still from a technnical standpoint, the art production, it is really up to date to what the most recent game engines can deliver, and the art direction is really good if you take into consideration that it's a asian game so yes it goes into de stylized and overly detailed art style to the extent that it starts to get polluted (at least for my taste in art in games...).... But the problem really is the grind element, but I doubt there will be an MMORPG that can break that format anytime soon.