Lost Ark official open beta launch date revealed in South Korea

Just as we shared with you, Smilegate has announced the official open beta date for the highly anticipated MMORPG Lost Ark. In case you are not aware, usually these open beta dates are seen in Korea as a proper official launch for a game. So, Korean players will be able to properly enjoy Lost Ark without the need for a beta key starting November 7, 2018.

The reveal was made during a media event and MMOCulture has some more juicy info on Lost Ark.

To begin with, the game updates that are coming after launch (a.k.a. open beta) will be divided into Season, Episode and Middle Update. As you can easily guess, the amount and style of content will vary, with Season being the largest scale update and a way to prepare the game for further updates. Episode brings new content including classes, worlds, story and events, with Episode 4 being currently in development. As for the Middle Update, this will bring new raids, field bosses, advanced dungeons and balance patches.

There are four new classes in development, but their release is only going to happen after the official launch, when a new continent will also be deployed. We've seen Smilegate adding three new classes during the second closed beta, so it looks like they aren't too interested in drip-feeding content.

The Lost Ark in-game store will sell “mostly” cosmetic and convenience items. For example, mounts, player housing decoration, pets, warehouse storage, appearance changes, time-saving items and so on. Let the pay-to-win debate begin!

Lost Ark is in development for seven years, with Unreal Engine 3 being the chosen engine at the time. Smilegate promised to update the graphics and optimize systems, as well as doing a “graphics remaster” when the game is stable enough – more likely in player base and ROI, just like it happened recently with the Black Desert Online update. However, contrary to what was mentioned a while ago, there was no mention of upgrading Lost Ark to Unreal Engine 4.

Smilegate said that players can grow their character just by playing PvP modes – not exactly my kind of thing, but you may like this. Finally, the Lost Ark soundtrack was composed by Brian Tyler, known for working on movies such as Thor: The Dark World, The Fate of the Furious, and Crazy Rich Asians.

Smilegate also mentioned that Lost Ark is their way of saying that MMORPGs still are a better fit for PCs, instead of mobile devices where every studio seems to be going right now. We couldn't agree more, and in our humble opinion there is no possible comparison between a fully-fledged MMORPG on PC and one on mobile devices. Unless you like to watch a game instead of playing it, that is.

Here is the new Lost Ark CGI trailer to get you in the mood. Sadly, there was no confirmation of an English release so far.