To say the free-to-play MMO Lost Ark has been a success is an understatement. The game managed to break the all-time concurrent player records of Dota 2 and CS:GO on Steam. It also became the second-most-played game on Steam when measured by concurrent players in its first weekend, beat only by PUBG. Upon Lost Ark‘s launch, Amazon announced that fifteen new servers would be added across all regions to help ease congestion. Sadly, while a new Europe West server was added, Smilegate is admitting that European players won’t be seeing a change in queue times any time soon.
According to a post from the developers on the official Lost Ark forums, “the Europe Central region is at capacity and unfortunately there is no way to increase the number of players per world in Europe Central. Adding more servers is not possible based on the complexity of all the systems that need to work together.”
Compounding player frustration, players in the West aren’t able to transfer to another server. This means that those in Europe Central who have invested ample time in the game won’t be able to bring their progress to Europe West either.
“Therefore, unfortunately, it is not a viable option at this point for the western version,” TrevzorFTW wrote on the forum. “But we will not rest until we’ve exhausted all options.”
The game sees players searching for the Ark, an artifact that once helped save the land of Arkesia. Kazeros, Lord of the Abyss, threatens to destroy the realm’s peace, and it’s up to the player character to stop him. Lost Ark blends aspects of the MMO genre with action RPG elements in the vein of Diablo, primarily focused on PvE and exploration.
Lost Ark was officially released on February 11, 2022 as a free-to-play title. Those purchasing one of four founder’s packs were able to access the game early, and earlier this week, the MMO broke 500,000 concurrent players on Steam. For those getting ready to jump into the madness, check out our quick tips guide here.
