Lost Ark is a grindy MMO that’s perfect to while away the hours

Lost Ark has become the most played game on Steam due to the number of concurrent players, making it the most played game of all time. Lost Ark is a Korean-developed game that was brought to the west via a partnership with Amazon Games. It has been around in the US and Europe for a short time, but it has over 200,000 viewers on twitch right now, and has beaten games like Dota 2, CS: GO, and PUBG in all-time number of concurrent players on steam.

What is a Lost Ark? I spent a week investigating this new gaming hotness, eager to see if it has what it takes to become my newest obsession or something else. Lost Ark is a free-to-play game. It is a free-to-play game with all the cultural hallmarks of a free-to-play game, including a game chat filled with gold farmers and wildly under-dressed female models. Lost Ark isn't serious and won't punish you for not taking it seriously.

I'm mostly satisfied with the character creator. A rainbow color wheel makes it possible for you to be more than just a couple of shades of Black, and there are tons of sliders to fiddle with to make your character look exactly as you want. Lost Ark understands that there are more ethnic hair styles than dreadlocks and afros, but it doesn't have more than a couple styles for people like me. Some classes in Lost Ark are gender locked, and I find it odd that they are not unlocked when you start the game. If I want to play as a warrior, I have to play as a male, or if I want to play a mage, I have to play as a female. You have to choose a number of specialized subclasses for each class after you pick your primary class. I chose the sorceress subclass of the mage job because I wanted to play as a lady. They felt weak and lacked an interesting character, so I created a new one.

It feels pretty decent. When enemies outnumber you 20-to-1 in dungeons, you need to chain together a number of abilities to unleash some powerful combo. It was satisfying hitting a bunched up group of troll with a sword blow and felling them all in a single hit. It is equally enjoyable to spin in a circle and destroy the enemies. Ensuring your abilities hit your enemies is the most challenging aspect of Lost Ark. If click-to-move doesn't work for you, Lost Ark has controller support. I haven't found a way to use mechanics to your advantage to win. Bosses don't present a challenge. They are only damage sponges with health bars to chew through. Combat in Lost Ark doesn't get complicated beyond point, click, win.

The game throws a lot of bars and systems at you, but most can be ignored. A standard experience bar and a roster bar that oversees all your characters on a given server gives you slight health and strength bonuses whenever it levels up. You can earn a lot of items on your travels. There are also story items you can pick up that do not serve any purpose beyond adding them to your journal.

I don't understand what Lost Ark is telling me. The game doesn't make it seem like you're missing too much because you don't read as much. There are a lot of skippable mechanics. You can increase how much they like you by giving them gifts or emoting at them. I was excited by the prospect of forming a romantic relationship with an NPC, but it seems that it's just another meter to get loot. Bummer.

The story is simple. You're an adventurer and you're going to a new land to find the lost ark object. I don't care, but there's more to it. Lost Ark doesn't feel like a game one plays for the story. Your enemies explode in all sorts of brain-pleasing ways when the numbers go up. And that is okay! Sometimes the body needs a game to go through motions. That is served by Lost Ark. I tried to absorb and understand everything that was happening in the game, but after the fourth quest, I had to click the thing again. I had a better experience when I stopped trying. The third season of Downton Abbey was playing on my second monitor when I clicked my way through the dungeons.

The sudden rise of Lost Ark may be due to the fact that it fills a hole in the hearts of those still waiting for the game to be released. I'd be surprised if it can maintain its popularity beyond its first couple weeks, but New World is still going strong despite its post-launch issues.

If you're looking for a rich world, you can get lost in combat that makes use of your grey matter. If you need something to do for an hour or two, then give it a try.