Anticipation has been high forLost Ark, a free-to-play MMOARPG that’s possibly the most anticipated title yet from publisher Amazon Games. As with most game launches, however, things couldn’t go off without a hiccup. First the launch was delayed, and then some players logged on to find that their characters were missing.Lost Ark’s launch was set for today, February 11th, but no one knew exactly what time it would be available. Players logged on in the morning only to find out that it wasn’t out yet, as the game faced deployment issues theLost Arklaunch was delayed by a number of hours, leaving gamers wondering just when they could finally play.RELATED:Lost Ark Giving Away Free Content to Convince Players to Swap ServersWhen it finally did so, players logged in to find that theirLost Arkcharacters were missing. This was understandably scary for people who have sunk lots of time into the game already, and they eagerly awaited word that they hadn’t been wiped completely. Fortunately, after an investigation,Lost Arkconfirmed that no characters were missing from the game at all.
Lost Arkoriginally launched in Korea, Japan, and Russia back in December 2019, but has justrecently surpassed 500,000 players on Steamin only these territories. That’s a major milestone for the game, and encouraging for anyone hoping for a beautiful, fully-featured MMO with tons of content, as it’s been worked on for all this time. The full launch brings it to the rest of the world, and potentially millions more players.
Amazon has been making a big push into the video game industry, though it hasn’t seen much success with it just yet. ButLost Arkisn’t its first published game, let alone its first MMO:New Worldwas released in September 2021 by Amazon Games Orange County (formerly Relentless Studios). The game was an initial success, but servers quickly got overwhelmed, huge bugs appeared, and the in-game economy was broken. The developers ofNew Worldhave admitted their mistakes in rushing the game outbut the player count has dwindled since launch.
Lost Ark, being free-to-play, might be able to circumvent some of this just by having so many players, but its rocky launch was surely not what players wanted to see. The game is packed full of content for anyone, although one has the option tobuy founder’s packsthat give players a number of rewards to both get them farther in the game and provide in-game rewards to show off.
