The largest MMORPG on Steam is celebrating an influx of players after a new update

The MMORPG Lost Ark made it back to the top of the most played online role games on Steam in September 2023. Developer Smilegate says the number of new players has increased by 225% in the last week, and the number of returning users has increased by 321%. It is believed that a new update is behind the upswing in player numbers.

How are Lost Ark’s player numbers developing?

  • Lost Ark was released on Steam in February 2022 and, as a free2play title, had a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous players when it was released.
  • Until December 2022, the number remained relatively high for an MMORPG, in the range of up to 350,000 simultaneously active players. But Lost Ark was under constant suspicion of being infested with bots. The high number of players on Steam should therefore be viewed with caution.
  • After December 2022, player numbers dropped steadily for 7 months until July 2023, when there were only around 24,300 average players online. In the 2 months, these goals have increased again slightly: from 24,390 they have now increased to 32,401.
  • Lost Ark shows its newest boss darkly and impressively in the cinematic trailer

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    Lost Ark is celebrating increasing player numbers

    This is what Smilegate says: The developers said on September 22 that they were seeing a 225% increase in new players and a 321% increase in returning players. (via game.mk).

    Lost Ark believes it’s due to The Eclipse update, which came out on September 13th. Smilegate says the patch also made it easier for players to get to item level 1580. This change is believed to have contributed significantly to the increase in player numbers.

    The remarkable increase in the number of players was measured in the week after the update.

    The Steam Charts numbers show the upswing, but also reveal that the number of players is increasing at a relatively low level:

    Lost Ark is coming back to Twitch

    What else stands out? At the start of the patch on September 13th and 14th, Lost Ark achieved a strong number of over 191,000 simultaneous viewers on Twitch, Lost Ark had not been this high in months.

    This is apparently due to the new raid, which brought endgame content to Lost Ark and attracted many players.

    Small upswing, but far from glory days

    This is what lies behind it: With the increase, Lost Ark has once again moved ahead of Mir4 (number 2) and Black Desert (number 3 on Steam) on Steam.

    It should be noted that Lost Ark is so big on Steam because it only runs on Steam, while MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV (4th place) or The Elder Scrolls Online (6th place) also work on other platforms and other launchers . New World, which is also only available on Steam, is currently number 5 among MMORPGs on Steam.

    Lost Ark is a long way from the “heyday” of release, despite the increase in the last 2 months.

    More about MMORPGs:
    The 10 biggest MMORPGs in Germany in 2023, according to Google

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