Last weekend, the big Gaming Expo G-Star took place in Korea. The Korean Game Awards 2019 were also presented. The big winner was a PC MMORPG, which is surprising given the other nominees.
Which PC MMORPG surprised? The big winner of the evening was Smilegate with their game Lost Ark. The Diablo MMORPG won six awards, including the Popular Game Award, which was based on a public vote.
Additionally, Lost Ark received the following awards:
- Best Technology Award (Planning and Scenario)
- Best Sound Award
- Best Graphics Award
- Best Character Design Award (Technical Basis)
- Presidential Award
Smilegate also won the Best Next Generation Content award with a VR Dating Simulator.
Why are the many awards for Lost Ark surprising? At the Korean Game Awards, Mobile games dominated. There were only three nominees that were not developed for smartphones. Lost Ark was the only MMORPG among them.
The game was already released in Korea in 2018 and managed to impress right at release. Meanwhile, there has been a slight dip, but also first significant updates for Lost Ark.
The success of Lost Ark could benefit the West
What does the success mean for us? That Lost Ark is receiving a lot of positive feedback in Korea could speed up the process for a possible release in the West. When an MMORPG is successful, a release in other regions makes perfect sense.
According to MMOCulture, the developer Smilegate is already actively looking for new employees who can translate texts from Korean to English. It seems that some localization work is already underway.
This is not surprising, as the developers announced that Lost Ark was developed for the global market.
Can you play Lost Ark now? You can now take a look at the game for yourself, as the open beta in Russia started in October. With some tricks, you can create an account, allowing you to test the new MMORPG from Korea even in Germany.
However, you will need a VPN, and the game is in Russian.
Even Black Desert creators received an award
Who are the other winners of the Korean Game Awards? Besides Smilegate and thus Lost Ark, there were also other well-known winners at the G-Star Awards.
The Game Business Innovation Award went to Pearl Abyss. The developer likely received it for the porting of Black Desert to consoles, and the mobile version of the MMORPG.
Pearl Abyss also announced four new titles at the expo:
- Crimson Desert, a new MMORPG and unofficial successor to Black Desert.
- DokeV, a family MMORPG
- Plan 8, a new MMO shooter
- Shadow Arena, a battle royale
Other well-known companies that received awards included:
- Netmarble for BTS World, Blade & Soul Revolution and Catchmind
- XLGames, developers of ArcheAge, for Moonlight Sculptor
- Moai Games for their game Traha, a mobile game in Unreal Engine 4.
- Riot Games Korea, who received an award for good social behavior.
Although the Korean company NCSoft did not participate in G-Star, there are still new updates on the MMORPG hope Project TL:
