Heroes of Arkesia,
With the Anniversary Update’s focus on celebrating the Lost Ark community, we wanted to share updates on some topics that we know players are interested in. While we don’t have final plans or policies for some of the updates, it’s important to our team that players receive an early look into some of our upcoming key initiatives.
As a preface for the update, we’re excited to share a message with Western players from the team at Smilegate RPG.
Greetings Adventurers,
For starters, we’d like to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of Western service, and express gratitude for all adventurers that enjoyed Lost Ark.
Looking back at the year of 2023, we began with the Rowen continent and Brelshaza Hard all the way to the Voldis continent and Ivory Tower in December. This is no small amount of content, as we had 4 new continents and 4 new classes in a relatively fast pace. This was to close gap between KR version, but we are aware that you were fatigued due to the quick updates.
Our goal for 2024 is to balance the speed of the adventurers’ contents progression and gap between KR contents update. As announced by the Roadmap, Breaker will be released in March and Thaemine will release in April.
As Thaemine will be challenging to try, we have prepared various events starting in February. It would be our great pleasure if you could have fun and show what you are all made of. The SGR Studio staff are hyped about your future challenges!
As for the latest Echidna (Ladon) Raid and Kurzan continent released in Korea, we are collaborating with Amazon Games to find the optimal update timing. Once decided, the update plans will be announced in the future with more detail.
We’re not only working on new content, but also to update existing contents. This is to address difficulties in playing the existing contents, such as rebalancing the difficulty of Brelshaza. Both Server Merge, and Region Merge that have been constantly suggested by you adventurers are being prepared. We are working alongside Amazon Games to schedule the merges. It is difficult to disclose in detail about the preparations we are making for Western service here, but we will be able to do so separately soon. We will closely listen to your voices in community so that the adventurers will be able to have more enjoyable experience with Lost Ark.
We thank you all again for untarnished love for Lost Ark, and with that we have prepared Anniversary Gift. It would be a great joy for us if you enjoy them.
We will do our best in 2024 for you adventurers to have a great time at Arkesia. May your health soar high and your life be filled with happiness.
Sincerely,
Smilegate RPG
Roadmap Updates
Road To Thaemine
To better help players prepare for the release of Thaemine, we’ve decided to move the Road to Thaemine event up a month to the March Update. We hope this will help support players excited for the Breaker Class and newer players looking to catch up with their friends and participate in endgame raids. This event is built to support players who reached 1580 using Super Mokoko Express to reach 1600s more smoothly to reach Thaemine Raid. The name of the event is not final may be updated heading into the month to fit the Breaker theme— similar to the previous Path of the Souleater event.
For players not familiar with the event, it will include Honing Support benefits, Item Level Completion Rewards as you progress that include honing materials and other valuable rewards, Mission Completion Rewards as you vanquish various pieces of endgame content, and a special Completion Reward when the event is completed to help you continue your path into Lost Ark’s endgame.
New and Returning Events
From bringing back the Arkesia Grand Prix Event to implementing some new events designed to help player progression, we plan on supporting players pushing toward the exciting new pieces of endgame content with plenty of ways to earn bonus rewards. We’ll have more details leading into the updates for March and April, but some of the ways we plan to help players progress to 1600+ include extra End Contents Clear Rewards (additional rewards given when clearing certain Legion Raids) and Honing Event Missions that give Gold and Honing Materials when trying to hone certain gear (such as Akkan Ancient gear).
Thaemine The First
While we previously mentioned that Thaemine would release at it’s original difficulty in Korea, we have decided to split the versions of the Legion Raid to release as they currently are in Korea; with the main version of the raid (encompassing both Normal and Hard modes) accompanied by “The First” version, which includes a special race for the first clear. As we head toward Thaemine’s Release in April, we’ll have more updates on how we plan to run the first clear race and what players should look forward to.
Server & Region Merges
Server Merges
On March 6 and 13 we plan to run two rounds of server merges that will target all regions to enhance the group gameplay experience in the open world of Arkesia. We will share the full plans and policies in a future article.
Region Merges
In the Summer of 2024 we plan to merge NA West, NA East, and SA into one enormous region. We’re excited for the increased opportunities for players to play, trade, and grow together in one region, but we know there are a lot of player questions on how this merge will be handled. As we continue to work with Smilegate RPG on the plans for this merge, we’ll communicate the planned timeline and policies.
Thank you for joining us for the team update, taking a look at our upcoming plans, and for your continued support! We’ll share follow-up articles and messaging on the topics discussed as soon as we’re able. In the meantime, we’ll see you in Arkesia!