Join Roxx, Marketing and Community Lead on Lost Ark, Associate Franchise Lead Matt and Senior Producer Henry for a first look at what’s coming to Arkesia in early 2026. Today we'll be focusing on the major content pieces each month, but please keep in mind that we won't dive too deeply into some of the smaller updates and adjustments. As we close out 2025, we also wanted to look back at everything we've accomplished together this year. It's been an amazing journey, and we're grateful to have shared it with such a passionate community.
Here’s a summary of the highlights. As always, we'll share more detailed updates, specifics, and additional information in the months to come.
January
Nukman’s Illusion Stone
In January, we’ll have a new type of collectible. To give a little back story, the first elder of the Yoz, Nukman sent a crescent moon shaped stone in the night sky to give the Yoz people hope and courage. It holds the enlightenment and emotions that Nukman had experienced, but over time it shattered into pieces. Collect Nukman’s Illusion Stones for valuable rewards.
Thaemine Extreme
While very similar to the original Thaemine Hard Gate 4, Thaemine Extreme is an event raid with adjusted difficulty and patterns. Changes include resurrection at the 4-2 battle workshop, and a system where successfully landing Just Guards can provide buffs for yourself and the whole team.
The raid can be entered once a week per roster, and will be around for a limited time. Thaemine Extreme offers first clear rewards and a set of weekly rewards through an Event NPC Shop. We’re looking into making some difficulty adjustments from when it released in Korea to balance for Ark Grid and other systems, and will follow up with the full suite of key information as we head toward its release.
New Ark Pass
The winners of the recent Community Emote competition will be added into the game, and January will feature the next Ark Pass, which has some pretty cool cosmetics, the Day and Night Minister skins.
February
Dragonknight Class
Lost Ark’s latest class, Dragonknight will arrive in February alongside the latest wave of progression events. The Dragonknight wields a massive Halberd as her primary weapon, but also uses hardened wings, scales, and other abilities that stem from her tragic past.
The Dragonknight has three types of skills: Normal Skills using the Halberd, Manifest Skills that pull upon the energy granted to her by the Guardians, and Incarnation skills, which modify the Manifest Skills to new heights when channeling the full potential of her draconic powers. While transformed, skills gain additional powers and even change their tripods. However, gems are shared across the different versions of each skill.
Next Wave of Progression Events
We will release another South Rimeria Powerpass to accompany the release of the Dragonknight. We are working to bring the latest balance changes coming from Korea as soon as we can, especially for classes with some pretty impactful changes. We plan to merge both of the last balance patches and release them together in February. This will be a great opportunity for you to use the powerpass on Dragonknight or any other class you’ve got your eyes on.
It will also be accompanied by other major progression events, which are still being discussed, given the regional differences. We’ll provide more updates as we head toward February. Other notable progression changes include updates to the character creation flow that add a class testing option before character selection, an early story revamp, and a better milestone mission system to help players learn the basics as they embark on their journey in Arkesia.
This is also when we plan to release the progression changes to Tier 3 that adjust the honing experience, including removing gold cost from Tier 3, removing gear honing altogether for lower level T3 honing (Brelshaza Gear), and adding some new quality of life features to honing such as bulk honing. In addition, there will be the new smart-facet feature for cutting ability stones.
Activity Overhaul
We’re also moving forward with the major content simplification that was recently announced in Korea. Some of the most notable changes are listed below. Look forward to more details closer to release.
The book of coordination will be removed, along with the content that used it, including Proving Grounds, Inferno raid content, and the earlier Trial Guardian Raids (other than Hanumatan). Tower content will also be removed, along with Weekly Unas. If there are any pieces of content in there that you want to experience before it goes away, you have about 2 months!
Along with the content removal, there’s also going to be a bit of content reward restructuring for daily and weekly activities.
Guardian Stones and Destruction Stones obtained from the Kurzan Front and Chaos Dungeons have been changed from tradeable items to character-bound items, and the quantity has been increased.
Honing materials obtained from Fate Embers that appear during the Kurzan Front and Chaos Dungeons have been changed from character-bound to tradeable items, and Destiny Shards are now obtained in the form of tradeable pouches.
Gems, Accessories, Bracelets, and Ability Stones will no longer be obtained from Kurzan Front and Chaos Dungeons.
Instead, Guardians at Trial of Vairgrys Stage 5 and above will drop gems appropriate to the Guardian’s tier. Guardians at Purification Stage 2 and above now drop Luminous Gem Shards.
The drop quantities of accessories, bracelets, and ability stones from Guardian Raids have been increased. Guardian Stones, Destruction Stones, and Leapstones are no longer obtainable from Guardian Raids.
Clearing a Chaos Gate will grant character bound gold. Higher-level Chaos Gates grant a greater amount of character bound gold upon completion. The Chaos Gates below item level 1580 have been removed.
The amount of Guardian Stones and Destruction Stones obtained from defeating the South Kurzan Field Boss Sevek Atun will be significantly increased.
Defeating Sevek Atun will also grant tradeable Leapstones. The type of Leapstone obtained corresponds to the character’s Item Level bracket. Characters below Item Level 1580 will no longer obtain honing materials when defeating field bosses.
There are a ton more specifics in this category, so once again, we’ll reiterate everything in a future team update.
March
Paradise Season 3
In March, we’ll launch the third season of Paradise. Overall, we’re really happy with how the system has turned out, with the different types of gameplay loops it provides, along with the accelerated progression for all characters. We worked with Smilegate to implement some feedback that everyone had from Season 1 into Season 2, from how upgrading gear worked, to some of the gameplay patterns coming from the gear upgrades, along with changing the early drop rates for gear. You’ve already experienced some of the changes, but with the season still progressing there should be some more interesting gameplay at the end with the 5 additional Crucible levels.
We’ll continue to be on the lookout for feedback throughout Season 2, and are excited for the continuation of the system in Season 3.
Next Story Chapter
The story marking the end of Chapter 1 of Lost Ark in what has been a multi-year battle against Kazeros and his forces will draw to a close in the final story quest, titled “One Who Confronted Abyss’s End”. It’s a continuation of the story directly after the last cutscene in Kazeros Denouement, and features a final battle against Kazeros in Petrania. We don’t want to share any other spoilers for those excited to experience it firsthand, but it will serve as the conclusion to Part 1 of Lost Ark’s story. It’s a pretty lengthy quest, so a Knowledge Transfer will be added for it as well.
April
Shadow Raid
With March wrapping up Chapter 1, we’ll begin the next chapter of Lost Ark in April, with the battle beginning against the primordial beings in the first Shadow Raid. The Primordial beings are mythical creatures who wander in search of meaning and a sense of self. They can even take on various forms. This chapter of Lost Ark will contain some dark stories, which will be reflected in some of the upcoming raids.
The first Shadow Raid will be against Serka, the Witch of Pain. There are going to be three difficulties: Normal at (1710), Hard at (1730), Nightmare at (1740). It’s a 4-player raid with 2 gates. In Gate 1 you’ll face off against Serka, a sadistic witch who enjoys torturing others. This will be followed by Gate 2, where you’ll see the Primordial Being’s true form, Corbus Tul Lark.
While the Serka Shadow Raid will provide Ark Grid Cores, the main progression system will be a new set of Tier 4 gear. This time around, less time will be needed to farm materials for crafting gear, but there will be a new Acceleration system added (using the same materials as crafting). Crafted gear can be honed up to lv. 20, and +25 when accelerated.
The new Nightmare difficulty will be similar to harder past raids hard mode (like Kazeros and Thaemine) to provide more challenge. Hard Mode will instead be in between the current difficulty of Normal and Hard, and normal mode will be an easier experience to help learn the raid. Gear Progression materials will only be dropped in Hard mode and Nightmare (no materials in Normal mode). Nightmare mode will provide the same amount of gear materials, but will provide more cores, gold, and more items in the auction, like 2 Relic Books.
There will also be some changes in raid systems for this Shadow Raid. You’ll go straight to boss room, there won’t be any HP recovery when the boss goes berserk, and there are two new systems, the New Brawl system which adds a unique action, and Shadow Skills, where you can steal a skill from the boss to use in battle. On top of that, the revive system in the Serka Shadow Raid will be called Brave Hearts, which shares revive counts between the party.
Conclusion
There are a few things we’re still investigating the timing for and whether or not there will be adjustments for players in the West, such as the Argos/Valtan mashup event, and some other Quality of Life adjustments. We’ll communicate any changes and adjustments when the timing is right through Team Update articles or release notes in the coming months.
We're incredibly excited about what lies ahead for Lost Ark in 2026. Thanks for joining us today, and as always, we'll see you in Arkesia!