Approximately one month after its official launch in Europe and America, Lost Ark seems to be losing momentum, even when Amazon Games recently dealt with solving queue problems in the kingdoms of Central Europe. What is really happening?
Players go down at Lost Ark, what are the reasons?
At the time of writing these lines, Monday, March 14, 2022, Lost Ark is obviously not dead and is even quite far from it. However, there has been a rather important traction loss in recent days, a fall in the title players illustrated by Steamcharts and Steamdb that offer graphics that illustrate the density of players over time.
Although at first glance these curves may seem terrifying, they should be put in context. In fact, it must be reminded above all that Lost Ark was launched at the same time as other games or expansions highly anticipated by the players. We can mention in particular the following:
The two fiercest competitors of Lost Ark on this list are, at this time, Elden Ring and Horizon: Forbidden West. However, it is mainly the first one who will have attracted the community where Horizon will have stayed more or less in the shade of Lost Ark and his direct competitor.
Although the genres of these three games are very different, they are "AAA" games very coveted by the Great Public, and that is why its launch almost at the same time that Lost ARK explains partly the decrease of players of MMoarpg Smilegate RPG. We must also bear in mind that the MMO part of the game would even interpeliate that WOW patch 9.2.
These new games or updates so expected, along with the problems suffered by Lost Ark (and still suffers in some cases) is very likely that they are at the center of the election of many players to stop interesting this game, at least temporarily.
However, it should be remembered that it is a MMORPG and that it takes a long time, in the same way that World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV, for example. Players are regularly tired of this type of game (for good or for bad), before re-testing it a few weeks later when they implement a content update, for example.
Legend:
- Blue: Lost Ark (released on February 8, 2022 in advance access, February 11, 2022 in Free to play)
- Green: Elden Ring (released on February 25, 2022)
- Yellow: Apex Legends (season 12 launched on February 8, 2022)
The Lost Ark peaks are usually the afternoons starting at 6:00 p. m. (Spanish time), where its valleys are the periods of prolonged maintenance during which the servers are completely inactive. Apex Legends does not seem to have had a great impact or even have suffered the launch of MMoapRG from Smilegate RPG, but Elden Ring, on the other hand, seems to be clearly seizing Lost Ark, especially since the weekend from March 11 to 13. That is quite normal since that's where most players have time available.
What future does Lost Ark have?
Well, the truth is that it is brilliant, since Amazon Games seems to have planned two new updates soon, as well as March 4. Two new classes would even be planned for May 2022! Therefore, it is possible that many players would feel disappointed with the status of the game when it was launched, especially for those who play in the servers of Central Europe.
In addition, the Western editor has been allowed to be quite reactive during the last month, even offering many free compensations for the inconvenience suffered by the players. An excellent point, although of course we regret the lack of flexibility in certain topics (particular migration).
Finally, and this is also a factor to take into account, Lost Ark remains a very particular game in its field and not necessarily expected by traditional conventional Western MMORPG players despite the improvements offered by Amazon Games.
But beware of the "threats" that are coming: although April does not foresee an important launch, some announcements could encourage players to leave anchors in other horizons. We know, for example, that Blizzard not only plans the so expected Beta of Overwatch 2 by the end of April, but also the announcement of the next expansion of World of Warcraft in mid-April!
Either way, is very unlikely that Lost Ark dies in the near future . The game is simply entering gradually in what would be called a "quiet" phase in which the base of loyal players will remain, while others will join episodic as important updates are implemented. The classical life of MMORPG, in fact!
Comments
Post a Comment