Lost Ark has been available in the West for a few days, after being released in South Korea in 2019, and is already a stratospheric success. The free to play published by Amazon Game Studios has become, within hours of its launch, one of the most played MMOs in Steam, to the point that the servers have struggled to keep up with the amount of users connected at the same time. Let’s take a look at some data.
Lost Ark is a hit
As we anticipated at the beginning, a few hours after its launch (which took place slightly later than originally planned) Lost Ark has recorded record numbers, becoming the second highest number of players connected at the same time of all time as far as Steam is concerned.
According to SteamDB, the game has peaked at 1,325,305 concurrent active users, surpassing, albeit slightly, the previous record recorded by Counter Strike Global Offensive with 1,308,963 players. The first game in the standings is still difficult to undermine, or PUBG, with the beauty of 3,257,248 active at the same time.
Despite this, the second place won by Lost Ark is well deserved and noteworthy, given that it is on balance a game released a few years ago, even if it remains to be understood how consistent its numbers will remain over time. In fact, Amazon has already returned from the partial flop of New World and it will be interesting to see if it manages to not fall out with Lost Ark; on the other hand, a test has already been made.
As you may have already guessed, the success of the children’s game of Smilegate it was not without its shadows, mainly due to the overcrowding of the servers, which generated a lot of discontent in the community.
Review bombing and the new servers
In recent days, especially during the weekend, the situation of the server Lost Ark has taken on unsustainable tones for many users, who have been unable to play given the very long waiting times to carry out the various in-game activities. The reason is as trivial as it is disarming: the servers simply weren’t enough to guarantee a smooth gaming experience to such a large number of players.
This led to a great deal review bombing su Steam, which drastically lowered the overall valuation of the title. Fortunately, however, the situation was quickly mitigated by the developers, who first of all offered a package of objects to all users as compensation and then promised the arrival of new servers dedicated to the most congested areas.
Going more into the matter, we have already received confirmation that the new servers will definitely arrive in Europeone of the areas most affected by the overcrowding of players, given that according to the software house it would be the only way to allow potential new users to start the game without inconvenience related to waiting times.
Here is what Smilegate stated:
“It’s a joint effort between Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG. Rest assured we will work 24/7 until it goes live. We understand that long wait times may persist, but it will take us time to make sure everything is set up in the best possible shape to help get all users into the game. We will share an update on the exact timing as soon as possible “.