I love this trend of MMOs making you feel really powerful from the beginning. It’s so refreshing, and joyful. There’s none of this power austerity, none of this ‘yes you can be powerful but you’ll have to earn it, young one’. Games like Black Desert Online and now Lost Ark just want to be fun right away, and it’s great.
Lost ArkDeveloper: Smilegate RPGPublisher: Amazon GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases today on Steam and is free-to-play
In fact, playing Lost Ark feels more like playing late-game Diablo 3 than an MMO – and I mean immediately. You immediately get several dazzling skills you can pulverise hordes of enemies with – and you do. You smash them up in the air, you crackle and fizz with lightning, and they pop like gory balloons around you. It’s brilliant fun.
And all the time, I’m waiting for reality to set in. I’m waiting for this Prologue to end and the game to go, “Aha! Now, let’s start again,” that ultimate opening comedown. But it doesn’t – at least from what I’ve seen. Sure, the Prologue is an instanced thing only for you, but even when you’re out of it, you have the same power. And the game seems to just want to give you more.
There are loads of lovely touches in the game as well. I love how the game lets you test ride your class before you commit to it, giving you a special arena where you can spawn in bosses and enemies to see how combat will feel. I’ve never seen that before! And while I say it’s like Diablo, in that it has the same diagonal-down camera and flow to how it plays, with lots of clicking and whacking, it’s no way near as dour or sullen, or slow, at least initially. Lost Ark is all pace and enthusiasm, and hammy drama and cringey bulging cleavages. It’s bright and it’s cheerful, and it’s hard not to like.