“Frosty Fate” – this is the name of the new update that was released on January 22, 2025, for the MMORPG Lost Ark. Starting with: a new raid and the anniversary party for the third birthday.
What do I need to know about the update? The content patch “Frosty Fate” went live on January 22, 2025, after several hours of maintenance. Featured highlights of the update include:
- Kazeros Raid Act 2: Requiem of the Floating Nightmare – An 8-player raid with a normal mode (requires item level 1,670) and a hard variant (item level 1,690)
- New Karma System for character progression: Earn Karma to increase your Karma level and gain combat stats and so-called Archen bonus effects
- Tier 4 Bracelets: These new relics grant you bonus effects and can be earned through the Kurzan Front, fortress expedition, and selected raid challenges
- New boundary system: Raids start with the difficulty level from Korea and receive automatic reductions over time when the boundary system is activated, so that casual players can master them in the medium term
- New Guardian Raid Skolakia
- New operation: Abidos 3 for the Kurzan Front
- New content for the Ebony Cube
- Adjustments of gold rewards
- Anniversary party for the 3rd birthday starts earlier: On a special anniversary island, you can celebrate the fest of Arkesia, with new quests, an event raid, and rewards.
- Lucky Drop Event: Grants you new luck drops in chaos dungeons and guardian raids until February 26.
You can find the official German patch notes with more details on playlostark.com.
All important information about Lost Ark in 2 minutes:
What does the community say about the update? The comments under the Reddit post by Amazon employee Roxx show that the patch notes have a clear problem: Too many questions and details remain unanswered.
- Ragestyles writes: “I am honestly upset that you often report so little about the really important details in the patch notes.” He cites missing details on the concrete contents of the event shop, the lucky drops, or the new Ark Pass paths as examples.
- Crowleys_yoo wants to know: “Hey Roxx, last summer you said you would bring API to our version of the game. Why haven’t we heard anything about API in 6 months […]? When can we expect API? There are so many community members eager to create tools for the game that require API.”
- UdyrEnjoyer criticizes a gold adjustment: “If you cut the gold from old raids, you only make it harder for new players to join the game.”
There was also criticism under the YouTube video about the patch:
- ClouD4CS writes: “Imagine nerfing gold from 1,600 to 1,620, but not adjusting the upgrade costs… well, good luck new players, I feel for you. :(”
- Gamerkunv2 doesn’t just see danger for new players: “This punishes new players stuck in T3 trying to advance to T4: No express event for them, less gold for them, no nerf of the upgrade costs for T3, even though the game has been in T4 for almost 6 months.”
- joseantoniierd4774 addresses another issue: “Bots are everywhere, in every content!!! Because of the bots, it’s hard to complete daily content, prices for everything are rising because of the bots…”
Despite all this criticism (or perhaps just because of the large number of bots), Lost Ark is the MMORPG with the highest number of players currently on Steam – namely just under 30,000 during prime time.
Prominent genre competitors like Final Fantasy XIV (about 22,500 in daily peak), The Elder Scrolls Online (about 14,800), New World (15,200), or Guild Wars 2 (4,200) cannot keep up, but can of course be played on other platforms as well. Nevertheless, it is not enough for Lost Ark to make it to the top 10 of the currently most popular MMORPGs on Steam.
