"Lost Ark" is not due to become free-to-play yet, but it's already among the biggest games on Steam ever in terms of player count.
Screencap from YouTube - Lost Ark
According to IGN, the new MMORPG's concurrent player count peaked at an insane 532,476. With these numbers, the isometric "Diablo-like" title has already beat out "Apex Legends" or even "Among Us," which are also massively popular multiplayer games in their own right.
That's not all. The game's peak concurrent player count is also enough to put it in sixth place on the Steam all-time list. It was only trailing other games like Amazon's "New World," "DOTA 2," "PUBG," and "CS:GO" to name a few.
However, all of that success seems to have come with problems. With so many players, the game's servers were struggling to handle everybody, causing connectivity issues and god awful queue times.
Developer Smilegate had to respond by opening up a new server, while also promising to keep monitoring server queues and "make additional adjustments" when needed:
What's even more impressive about this milestone, however, is how fast "Lost Ark" reached it. According to GamesRadar, it surpassed the 500K mark in just three hours, despite not being a fully launched game at that point. This is an insane feat considering just how new the game is, and how it started as a paid game in the first place.
With this, one might expect that "Lost Ark's" free to play transition will bring even more players. This is already evident in the other games on Steam's all-time list, considering a handful of them are free-to-play titles like ("Apex Legends" and CS:GO" being perfect examples.
Aside from the massive player count, "Lost Ark" is also seeing sky-high viewership on Twitch. It reported a peak of 1.2 million viewers on the date of its early access launch, which is once again quite unprecedented.
Screencap from YouTube - Lost Ark
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What Is 'Lost Ark?'
For the uninitiated, "Lost Ark" is a new isometric MMORPG from Korean developer Smilegate and Amazon Games.
The former is famous for the first-person shooter "Crossfire," which had a Western version called "Crossfire X." They're scheduled to officially launch the game in the North American and European markets on February 11, after already building a massive following in South Korea, according to Polygon.
The game's isometric view is reminiscent of the classic "Diablo" games from Activision Blizzard. However, it is far more... flamboyant in a sense, especially with just how its characters and overall world design looks.
Players have the option to choose between a total of 15 playable classes to journey across the game world called Arkesia. Their main goal is to slay demonic hordes with all their abilities, which depends on the character class they pick, of course.
Like most MMORPGs, "Lost Ark" features the same old content that you'd expect: side quests that include foraging, fishing, hunting, and even archeology, as well as a so-called "cinematic, story-driven campaign." And since it's an MMO, it also features PvE and PvP combat modes.
Related: 'GTA V's Has Now Sold Over 160 Million Copies In Its Lifetime
Story posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce