The action MMORPG Lost Ark does actually plan its release in 2018 with an open beta. And the game director apparently has Europe and North America in mind. This is news fans have been waiting for since 2014.
Lost Ark is an MMORPG that many Westerners have been keeping an eye on since 2014. An impressive reveal trailer came out. Fans see Lost Ark as a sort of next-gen Diablo 3 with more MMORPG elements. But Lost Ark is also a game with a strange pro-and-con list.
| Pro | Con |
| Could revolutionize the MMORPG genre | No one knows when it will be released |
| Looks fantastic | No one knows if it will really come to the West |
Recently, fans of the wait have become quite tired.
On April 20, the game director of Lost Ark, Gang-Sun Geum, gave interviews to three Korean sites that could eliminate these con points. These are interviews with Inven, Ruliweb and ThisisGame. The interviews are in Korean. They were translated by the fan site LostArkDB.
We summarize the essentials.
Lost Ark aims for release in 2018
With Lost Ark, they want to hurry now, so they have eliminated a beta phase. Normally, there should be a final beta between the last closed beta and the release in an open beta, but they will now skip that.
The game director says: They collected so much feedback in the second closed beta and have now implemented it, that they are confident they can send Lost Ark out into the world. They do not want to impress players in the closed betas but collect as much criticism as possible to then convince with the open beta.
The upcoming third closed beta of Lost Ark is supposed to be the last, after which it will go into an open beta. This is practically the release.
The game director does not yet provide a specific date, but he says that one thing is certain: They want to release Lost Ark in 2018.
Lost Ark apparently aims for Europe and North America
Although the game director has no specific news about a port to Europe or North America. However, the world market is clearly in their sights. The game director tells the Korean sites that they have the “global market” in mind with Lost Ark. He speaks of “overseas,” which likely refers to Europe and North America.
The director says that games like “Horizon Zero Dawn,” “God of War,” or “What Remains of Edith Finch” are coming out abroad. In Japan, “Legend of Zelda” and “Monster Hunter” have revitalized the gaming industry. He feels there is a lack of something like that in Korea.
It is indeed difficult to adapt Lost Ark to “overseas” and compete with the games there, but he hopes that Korean games will soon receive global recognition.
It’s not about the money, but one feels almost compelled to go overseas because the foreign market looks so closely at Korean games.
Although the game director believes that Lost Ark still has a long way to go to find its place in the global market, they want to do everything to achieve these goals.
No Pay2Win – also considering the global market
They do not want to have paywalls in the game, nor particularly tedious content for which players have to pay to skip. This is the philosophy of their team. The company respects that.
The team follows this philosophy and wants to be successful not only in Korea but also in the global market.
One can be curious whether there will soon be concrete plans for a European release of Lost Ark. The question will certainly be exciting regarding who could act as a West publisher . Developer Smilegate had an office in Berlin, which was intended for the distribution of the popular shooter Crossfire. However, it was recently closed due to “restructuring measures” (via Gameswirtschaft).
More about Lost Ark and why fans are so excited about it:
This is how Project TL and Lost Ark want to save the PC MMORPG
