In the upcoming MMORPG Lost Ark, there is bad news for us in Germany. Although the closed beta is starting soon in the not-so-distant Russia, the publisher there, Mail.ru, has decided to exclude us. A regional lock will be active according to discussions with the developers.
Why is this frustrating? Lost Ark is the MMORPG that actually exists somewhere in the world, and it is the MMORPG that fans here in Europe are waiting for the most.
The action MMORPG is reminiscent of Diablo 3 in its perspective, but it is a full-fledged MMORPG and has already made significant waves in South Korea at its release.
It has been announced that Lost Ark will expand to China and Russia. A Western release in Europe and North America is also planned, but eager fans are still waiting for details.
Those players who found the South Korean MMORPG too complicated to access hope now for a chance to easily play Lost Ark in Russia. However, that won’t happen.
This is what Mail.Ru says: It is said that they consulted with the developer again and now the game is region-locked. The Russian version of Lost Ark is thus restricted to Russia and a few other states with many consonants, namely:
- Kazakhstan
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
- Tajikistan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Belarus
- Ukraine
- Azerbaijan
- Georgia
- South Ossetia
- Abkhazia
- Moldova
- Armenia
Anyone in Europe who absolutely wants to play the Russian version will thus have to try as hard to overcome obstacles as with the South Korean version. We have described how to do this here.
Lost Ark is supposed to launch in Russia in 2019, but there is still no specific date.
This can also be seen positively: If you prefer the perspective of the half-full glass, you can read the news as Smilegate apparently really plans to release an international version for Europe and North America. Therefore, Smilegate finds it important to forbid Russians from offering their game west of the Iron Curtain.
A little salt in the wound is that Mail.ru has already released a demo version of Lost Ark that is 27 GB large and allows players to use four classes and play a small map.
