Last week, a new rumor about the European release of the MMORPG Lost Ark surfaced through the publisher my.games. We inquired whether there is any truth to the rumor. This is the status as of April 2020 regarding the Western release of Lost Ark.
This is how the new rumor originated: On April 2, a curious blog post appeared on mail.ru, the official site of the Russian publisher of Lost Ark. It stated that the MMORPG will also be available on the international MY.GAMES Store platform from mail.ru in the near future and will thus gain access to “new services”.
This measure would be preceded by an unspecified server downtime. The integration of Lost Ark would take place in several stages, with the first stage expected to happen in Spring 2020.
Some fans took this announcement as confirmation that Lost Ark is finally coming to us and that my.games, the subsidiary of mail.ru, will be the Western publisher.
However, the blog post also mentioned:
The game servers themselves will also not be affected: there is no merger with other regions and no relocation.
To avoid misunderstandings, we therefore contacted my.games and requested further information.
This is what my.games says: In response to our inquiry, my.games stated that the blog post does not represent a “concretely confirmed release in Europe”.
Even though the MY.GAMES Store is an international platform, it is subject to certain regional restrictions, just like Steam, for example.
This means that while Lost Ark can be played in the Russian region through the international store in the future, this does not apply to Europe. At least not without the use of VPN services, as the MMORPG is subject to region lock.
This is the current status regarding the European release of Lost Ark
SmileGate has not provided any official statements regarding a global release of Lost Ark for some time. A few months ago, there was another rumor that the MMORPG is coming to the West.
This is what SmileGate says: On the official verified Facebook page of Lost Ark, there is a post from April 16 (via Facebook) confirming that the developer is still working on a global release of the MMORPG:
We are currently working hard to prepare for the global release. We cannot provide a date, but we wanted to let you know that we are on it and looking forward to announcing good news in the near future. […]
Official Facebook account of Lost Ark
However, in recent months, there have also been various measures taken by the developer SmileGate that indicate a global release. These include:
- Own statement from November 17, 2019: 2020 will see SmileGate seriously pursue “global expansion” for Lost Ark. (via news.1.kr)
- The search for English-speaking staff
- The gradual dissolution of the gender lock for classes, which is unpopular in the West.
- Discussions about a console version of Lost Ark in November 2019
- The planned IPO of SmileGate
Fans in the West will thus have to continue to wait for news. According to the Facebook post, “good news” is expected “in the near future”.
Our author Irina Moritz was able to test Lost Ark on the Russian servers a few months ago and believes that the wait will be worth it.
