Lost Ark is approaching its first birthday in February, and it's celebrating the occasion with a substantial update that introduces an all-new continent with open-world faction PVP. Lost Ark will also be commemorating its anniversary with a few events that yield special rewards along with Twitch Drops allowing players to earn various items.
Originally a huge hit in Korea when it was released in 2019, Lost Ark's western debut by Amazon Games in 2022 was greeted by a massive surge of players who helped Lost Ark break records on Steam. As a free-to-play fusion of Diablo-style action-RPG combat with massive open-world MMORPG systems, the game was significantly more popular than Amazon Games' previous MMORPG attempt, New World. Since the western version of the game is several years behind the original Korean version, much of Lost Ark's first year involved numerous updates that slowly introduced classes, features, and encounters that have already been available to Korean players.
One of the first major Lost Ark updates of the year will coincide with the game's first anniversary, so Lost Ark is bringing quite a few additions with the update arriving on February 8. The main focus is the new continent Rowen, a land that is rich with rare minerals and hotly contested between two warring factions: Preigelli and Liebertane. Players who are item level 1445 or higher can begin the world quest on Rowen which will culminate in their decision to join one of the two factions. This leads to an open-world PVP system, where players from the competing factions will rise through the ranks of their faction by participating in PVP and completing daily and weekly quests.
Besides the Rowen continent and open-world PVP, players can also expect a few events that offer valuable rewards along with new Twitch Drops which tend to reward cosmetic items and costumes. The rewards from the birthday event may come in handy ahead of the March update which, according to the Lost Ark 2023 roadmap, will introduce the large-scale 48v48 Tulubik Battlefield PVP system. The new Artist advanced class will also be finishing development ahead of schedule, leading to an early release in March.
The game recently caught some flak when Lost Ark issued bans to tons of innocent players, leading to a significant backlash in the form of a Steam review bomb. Lost Ark was quick to rectify the situation, however, repealing the bans within days and attributing the incident to an error in its bot detection methods.
Lost Ark is available on PC.
Source: Lost Ark
