After the undeniable success of its early access, Lost Ark opens its doors to players around the world this Friday. Release time, test, guides, find our free-to-play event launch survival guide.
[Mis à jour le 11 février 2022 à 05h00] Amazon continues its love affair with MMORPGs. After the explosive and short-lived success of New World, the e-commerce giant is teaming up with Smilegate RPG to bring Lost Ark to the West. Released in 2018 in South Korea, this game skillfully mixing MMORPG and hack’n’slash quickly established itself as a must-have in South East Asia, pushing many European players to try to circumvent the region restriction in an attempt to appreciate this successful release. Amazon Games opens the doors of Archésia to us this Friday, and we offer you all the useful information for this event release (and our test).
What is the release time for Lost Ark?
Although Lost Ark is already available in early access for founding members, other players will have to wait until the official release date of the game to discover the wilds. Lost Ark will be available from Friday, February 11 at 6 p.m. French time on Steam. In addition, Amazon is offering all its Prime members an arrival pack including the Crystalline Aura, Amethyst Fragments and a Battle Chest. You can grab it for free through your Twitch account and by linking your Steam account to your Twitch account. Besides, you can already pre-download the game today.
To join Lost Ark early access, you must first have purchased the game’s Founder’s Pack. Indeed, although Lost Ark is completely free-to-play, there are “Founder” packs allowing you to have access in early access in addition to receiving various in-game items and cosmetics. These packs vary in price and content, ranging from €14.99 for the Bronze pack to €99.99 for the Platinum pack and its exclusive mount. But keep in mind that the world of Archésia is entirely accessible for free, a bias that will undoubtedly make the success of this polite hack’n’slash both in its gameplay and in its graphics.
Already released a little over three years ago in South Korea, Lost Ark does us the honor of landing in the West thanks to the intervention of Amazon Games. No more localization hacks by VPNs of all kinds to try to play this massively multiplayer hack’n’slash, no more total misunderstanding in front of its text in Korean or Russian. This Western version allows us to discover a game with enormous potential and unique gameplay, finally offering us the opportunity to discover Archesia, its mysteries and its islands, alone or with others. And, although it does not overwhelm the player with a story or a tragically gripping universe, it knows how to impose itself as a pillar of a relatively new genre, offering both a successful MMORPG experience and a hack’n’ diabolically effective slah.
Because indeed, question of taste, the universe of Lost Ark is rather particular. Archesia, while unique, remains a fairly generic world, where the good guys fight off the return of the bad guys in a main quest whose stakes will be far from keeping you up at night. But truth be told, although the world and storyline of Lost Ark seems relatively classic, its gameplay more than makes up for it in exquisite craftsmanship. Few games can make slaying demons by the thousands as satisfying, thanks to a balanced class system, skills with well-crafted visual effects, and high-quality graphics. And yes, the why and how of the return of the enemy of the Kingdom is of little importance, a question of personal sensitivity, when you take so much pleasure in destroying your armies as a group. The world is beautiful, spells and attacks fly in all directions, an effective combo to give the player a feeling of intense satisfaction.
The quest system is simple, providing relatively quick access to high-level content, while the player versus player mode is both a feast for the eyes and for your competitive spirit. If we remain, once again a matter of taste, quite insensitive to its very Korean aesthetic, we cannot remain unmoved by its addictive and perfectly realized gameplay. You want to learn how to take charge of your class, to discover your spells, touched by this eternal desire for “get good”. Add to that the relative freedom offered by the leveling and skill system and you have a varied hack’n’slash, offering any type of player an experience that suits them. In addition, Lost Ark is completely free-to-play, without falling too much into the pitfalls of pay-to-win. So why not try it?
A monster success for early access
Having already brought together more than 500,000 players nearly 24 hours after the start of its early access, Lost Ark is gradually positioning itself as one of the biggest successes of the start of the year. A good omen when you consider that the game will be fully available for free this Friday. The opening of the servers to players from all over the world could well be a major event for the teams at Amazon Games, in charge of the maintenance and management of its servers. After the major difficulties experienced by players during the launch of New World, all eyes are on the studio of the e-commerce giant for the management of a certain influx next Friday.
Gameplay of Lost Ark
If you haven’t particularly followed the development of MMORPGs, know that Lost Ark is defined as a massively multiplayer hack’n’slash. You play as an adventurer, chosen from five varied and fully customizable classes. It is as Warriors, Sharpshooters, Martialists, Mages and Assassins that you will discover the mysteries of the world of Archésia and its seven continents. As for the scenario, Archesia is plagued by the return of Kazeros, the Lord of the Abyss, locked away for eons in the volcano that bears his name and which recently erupted. A cataclysm that sounds the return of demonic hordes that you will have to fight.
What PC configuration to play Lost Ark?
Although Lost Ark offers an isometric view, synonymous with a player camera quite far from the scenery, it still offers high-level graphics, especially in terms of combat animations. It is also for this reason that the minimum and recommended configurations to enjoy the game in good conditions are quite high. Note, however, that the disk space needed to store the game remains relatively low, with just over 50 GB recommended. It’s on the graphics card side that you have to look, with an Nvidia GTX 1050 to enjoy the game in 1080p, and a GTX 2070 or an RX 5700 XT to enjoy the game in 1440p:
Minimum System Requirements
Requires 64-bit processor and operating system
- Operating system : Windows® 10 64 bit
- Processor : Intel® Core™ i3/AMD® Ryzen™ 3
- Memory : 8 GB of RAM
- Graphic card : NVIDIA® GeForce® 460
- DirectX: version 9.0c or higher (June 2010)
- Network: high speed internet connection
- Storage : at least 50 GB of available space
- Other remarks: internet connection required to play, in-game purchases available
Recommended System Requirements
Requires 64-bit processor and operating system
- Operating system : Windows® 10 64 bit
- Processor : Intel® Core™ i5/AMD® Ryzen™ 5
- Memory : 16 GB of RAM
- Graphic card :
1080P FHD
AMD® Radeon RX560 2G
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660
1440P QHD
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 2070
AMD® Radeon RX5700XT
Ultra Specs (4K, UHD)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 2080
AMD® Radeon RX 6800
- DirectX: 9.0c or higher (June 2010)
- Network: high speed internet connection
- Storage : at least 50 GB of available space
- Other remarks: internet connection required to play, in-game purchases available