Although upcoming MMO Lost Ark hasn’t fully launched just yet, huge demand from fans trying to pre-load the game is putting a strain on Steam servers.
- READ MORE: ‘Lost Ark’ review: a steady grind
Amazon Game Studios‘ western release of Lost Ark doesn’t come out in full until this Friday (February 11), but demand for the game is already causing issues for eager fans.
Yesterday (February 8), the official Lost Ark Twitter account acknowledged that players were having trouble downloading and pre-loading the MMO.
“Steam is aware of it and is actively looking into the issue,” clarified the account, before later saying that “we are now seeing improvements in players being able to download and decrypt the game, and have confirmed this with the team at Valve.”
A Founder’s Pack version of Lost Ark means that some fans have been able to get into the MMO ahead of its full launch, which has already led to some early demand.
Thank you for the reports regarding game downloads timing on Steam.
Steam is aware of it and is actively looking into the issue and we will update players as soon as we have additional information.
— Lost Ark (@playlostark) February 8, 2022
At time of writing, Lost Ark is the fifth most-played game on Steam. SteamDB shows that there are 236,690 players on it right now, with an all-time peak of 532,476 being hit within the last 24 hours. While early edition Founder’s Pack copies can be purchased for instant access, the game will be free-to-play when it launches on February 11 – meaning that it’s likely this player count will soar in the coming weeks.
Though Amazon Game Studios is only porting Lost Ark to the West, fans will be watching to see if it has any of the same issues that its last MMO – New World – had. While New World was Steam’s most-played game at launch, it also suffered from lengthy queue times for the first couple of weeks. While this is pretty standard for the launch of any big MMO, it’s possible that Lost Ark‘s free to play status will increase the pressure on its servers.
In our review of Lost Ark, we gave it three stars out of five and said that even for an MMO it feels particularly grindy.
If you’re wondering when you can jump into the game, here’s when you can play Lost Ark.
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