Lost Ark is a top-down action MMORPG developed in South Korea that has addicting combat, attractive visuals, and a massive quantity of endgame content. This free-to-play PC game has been accessible in other regions for a while, and it finally comes to the West with over two years of polish and new upgrades. The cash shop in Lost Ark is strangely small before launch, and controller support should be better, but the Smilegate RPG-developed MMORPG is a fantastic game that’s well worth your time (and perhaps your cash).
Lost Ark (for PC)
- Hack-and-slash action abounds
- Variety in battle is excellent
- Hundreds of hours of high-quality solo and multiplayer content
- In testing, you did exceptionally well
- Better controller support is needed
- Before the launch, there was an ambiguous cash shop
LOST ARK (FOR PC) SPECS
| Games Platform | PC |
| Games Genre | Action-RPG, MMORPG |
| ESRB Rating | Mature |
Taking on the World
There are various places to explore, resources to gather, and gear to gain in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but battle is at the center of it all. To balance content, Lost Ark does not use the standard MMO roles of tank, healer, and DPS. Instead of defined positions, there are a few prominent classes with support perks. While it’s helpful to have a healing-capable class in the group, everyone is responsible for understanding boss mechanics, attacking the boss, and avoiding receiving damage. The healing classes in Raiders of the Lost Ark aren’t designed to babysit like their counterparts in Final Fantasy XIV.
Combat is, without a doubt, Lost Ark‘s strongest suit. Abilities appear to be well-designed, have a loud sound, and are enjoyable to use. When you divekick a throng and blow fodder monsters into gory chunks, you can’t help but feel like a battle god. Every class has a long list of skills to choose from, and you may only use eight of them at a time. Each attack ability has effects that can be improved and adjusted, such as increased AOE damage, increased single-target damage, or added stunning effects.
Furthermore, Lost Ark features 15 different playable classes at launch. If you’re a fan of swords, you might like the Warrior class, for example. Berserker, Gunlancer, and Paladin are the three subclasses of this umbrella class. Berserkers are skilled swordsmen with devastating sword abilities and a powerful berserk condition that increases their strength and endurance. Gunlancers are equipped with a mechanically improved sword and a large shield, as well as a defensive posture for deflecting damage and party-protecting skills. They’re the Tank class from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Paladins are magical warriors with strong melee capabilities, holy magic, party bolstering, and healing abilities.
Even within the same umbrella class, no two classes are alike. For example, within the Martial Artist main class, I choose the Scrapper subclass. Scrappers assault enemy groupings with meaty, impactful skills while wearing large, clunky gauntlets. Soul Fist is a fighting class that mixes area-of-effect magic with light strikes and magically strengthened punches. These fighters have a Dragon Ball-like appearance and feel to them. Even better, the intro allows you to playtest each subclass before committing.
Solo or with a group of friends
Despite the fact that it is an MMORPG, Lost Ark has a lot of solo content. The main tale begins with an introduction to the battle system. A mighty demon wreaks havoc on the planet in search of the Ark of the Covenant, a powerful magical item that can destroy evil. You, the protagonist, are connected to the Ark and are the only one who can stop the demon’s rampage. The dialogue and voice acting are occasionally hokey, but that doesn’t matter because the game’s main focus is action. You explore the world in search of this monster and the Ark of the Covenant, destroying every evil foe in your way with arcade-style beat ’em up action while collecting gear and valuables along the way.
As you progress through the story, you’ll eventually discover a housing system that allows you to gather and cultivate precious resources for equip improvements. You also obtain a ship that allows you to go to islands and distant continents full of unique environments and quests. There are also Tower challenges, which are increasingly tough exams with bigger prizes as you move through the floors.
Of course, there are a plethora of dungeons to explore on your own or with other players. Many of them I completed solo because the story-based mobs aren’t especially difficult, and the bosses are much more fascinating when they’re entirely focused on you. Questing and story-relevant content aren’t tough in general. The main tale is very lighthearted, and it only serves to ease you into the endgame stuff, which is where the true battle begins.
If you’re looking for multiplayer action, Lost Ark offers enough to offer. Once you unlock the game’s dungeons, global bosses, and raids, you can organize a group to take on them. Dungeons can be completed individually or in groups of five, as previously stated. Endgame raids are home to the most difficult creatures and bosses. Raids can hold eight to sixteen people depending on the challenge, and they’re more mechanically complex than the skill-spamming bouts you’ll encounter for the most of the game. Raids, of course, reward you with some of the best gear and supplies Lost Ark has to offer, so they’re well worth running as soon as they’re accessible.
Another multiplayer feature to investigate is player-versus-player (PvP) interactions. A six-player team deathmatch, a six-player free-for-all, and team elimination are among the game types. Team elimination is a mode in which two teams of three players fight one-on-one until all players on a squad are eliminated.
In its PvP variants, Lost Ark levels the gear and stats, putting all players on an equal footing when battling. This makes for a far more fair and balanced fighting experience, as your ability and execution, rather than your equipment or level, determine the outcome of the match. This is a better PvP implementation than Blade & Soul. That game contains many gear-based PvP modes with various equipment-leveling routes that make the game incredibly hard to play as a new player because the stat disparity between novices and veterans is far too large to overcome. This is particularly true in free-to-play MMORPGs, where money-spending whales obtain gear faster than those who refuse to open their wallets.
Future Arc’s Cash Shop and Lost Arc’s Cash Shop
In any MMO, cosmetic customization is a big deal. Any long-time MMO player knows that the actual goal is fashion, and Lost Ark does not disappoint in this regard. Lost Ark has a distinct Eastern flavor that is reminiscent of Tera and other Korean MMOs. There are several armor sets to gather, as well as cosmetics to purchase with money if you want to go that path, in addition to a simple character builder to create your hero.
The way Amazon Games handles the cash store is perhaps the most important component in determining Lost Ark’s ultimate success. Free-to-play games are polarizing because of its pay-for-convenience or pay-to-win features, which go beyond just aesthetic things. These can be little enhancements, such as experience-boosting potions, or major advantages, such as improved equipment or upgrades. The way a free-to-play game balances convenience and plain advantage may split, if not kill, its community.
Cosmetics such as pet, mount, and ship skins are available in the Lost Ark cash shop, as well as a 30-day subscription (the cost of which is unknown at the time of writing) that grants various benefits such as reduced cooldowns on crafting, research, and dispatches, experience boosts, and free teleports. Nothing here is game-changing, and these are mostly small conveniences, but it will be interesting to see what else is added to this cash store in the future. We’ll have to wait and observe how the cash shop is monetized before we can assess the game’s overall health. This will be the deciding factor in whether or not Lost Ark is worth staying with in the long run.
Because Lost Ark is still in beta, this review is based on my experience with the playtest servers. As a result, the server’s long-term health, as well as the game’s, is in jeopardy. Still, since Raiders of the Lost Ark was a huge hit overseas, it’s very possible that the same will be true for its Western version.
Is your PC capable of running Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Lost Ark isn’t particularly demanding, which isn’t unexpected given that it’s been out for two years in other countries. A PC with an AMD Ryzen 3 or Intel Core i3 processor, AMD HD6850 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics card, 8GB of RAM, 50GB of storage, and the 64-bit Windows 10 operating system is required to play the game. An AMD Ryzen 5 or Intel Core i5 processor, an Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU, and 16GB of RAM are recommended. Lost Ark cannot be played offline in any circumstance and requires a dedicated internet connection.
Lost Ark ran exceptionally well at 1440p resolution on a desktop PC with a Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Nvidia RTX 2080, and 16GB of RAM. The game operated at over 80 frames per second with the graphical settings turned all the way up.
Lost Ark includes Steam Achievements and partial controller compatibility, as do most Steam games. Although you can use a gamepad for all combat and looting functions, entering and navigating menus, as well as managing your inventory, is a bit cumbersome without a mouse and keyboard.
To Victory, Hack and Slash
Lost Ark is an incredibly well-polished action-MMORPG with a lot of lasting potential. The top-down vision in Lost Ark takes some getting accustomed to, but there’s plenty of solo stuff to explore, including dungeons, Tower challenges, PvP, and housing. If you want to play in a group, Lost Ark‘s party-driven dungeons, raids, and endgame have plenty of options. It’ll be interesting to see if Lost Ark finds an audience, but it’s a polished, high-quality game that’s free to play.
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Lost Ark (for PC)
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