The new MMORPG Lost Ark was released on February 12 at 00:45, after severe launch issues. The MMORPG breaks some records and also scores on Twitch again. The game reached almost one million simultaneous players at launch.
When did Lost Ark launch? The head-start for all pre-order customers of Lost Ark took place on February 8 at 18:00. At that time, 532,000 players were playing the new MMORPG simultaneously, which was able to more than double Smilegate’s expectations.
On Twitch, over 1.2 million fans watched Lost Ark streams simultaneously, and here too, the MMORPG set the record for both New World and World of Warcraft.
Actually, Lost Ark was supposed to be released for all players on February 11 at 18:00 and also be free-to-play, but the launch was delayed by several issues to about 00:45 the following day.
How did the launch go? However, this does not seem to diminish the hype around Lost Ark, as the game continued to break records. While everyone was waiting for the launch and the resolution of the issues, over a million people were watching on Twitch and waiting together.
Thus, Lost Ark broke the viewer record of New World on Twitch for the second time.
When the game finally started, 984,111 players were playing Lost Ark simultaneously. That is about 50,000 more than New World had on its best day. Fairly, New World is a paid game that cannot be played for free.
Thus, the new MMO Lost Ark reaches 4th place on Steam in terms of most simultaneous players ever (via Steamcharts)
Only Dota 2, CSGO, and PUBG have ever gathered more simultaneous players on Steam than Lost Ark. But these were not the only successes that the MMORPG can boast.
Already a bestseller again, but with a new package
What new package? Just one hour before the servers actually went live, the new packages were already available for purchase on Steam. The three different packages cost up to €64.99 and offer some quality-of-life content and cosmetic items.
Even before the game was launched and the servers were still offline, the Vanquisher Starter Package for €64.99 was already the top seller on Steam.
The other two packages for €34.99 and €19.99 could already claim 5th and 8th places in the best-selling games on Steam just 2 hours after release.
This way, the new starter packages replace the previous Founder’s Packs, which had also been able to hold positions in the top sellers. Thus, the free-to-play MMORPG is for the second time the best-selling game on Steam.
How does the community react? Not so well, as one might have expected. Up until the launch today, the MMORPG had reached a solid rating of 96% on Steam. This made it one of the best-rated games on the platform.
But the free-to-play launch today pulled the ratings down significantly. Among other things, the long downtime was responsible. The servers were supposed to be shut down at 14:00 and then go live for everyone at 18:00.
The shutdown at 14:00 worked, but the servers remained offline until after 0:00 and continued to experience technical issues thereafter. That should explain a large part of the now negative ratings.
Currently, Lost Ark has 8,193 ratings on Steam and still has 81% positive reviews.
Are you playing the game at release or are you still waiting to see how Lost Ark develops? Are you glad that the game was able to exceed its own expectations many times over, or do you not really understand the hype around the MMOARPG just yet? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on MeinMMO.
Our author Mark Sellner says: Lost Ark is so good that I spent €250 and would gladly spend more.
