Lost Ark review in progress – MMO excellence

Lost Ark is very nearly the most perfect MMO I’ve ever played. The combat is fluid and responsive, making me feel vulnerable and powerful in equal measures; the progression is dynamic, constantly feeding me rewards and providing me with meaningful choices and surprising twists; and every system is elaborate, interconnected, and supported by robust tutorials. The whole experience leaves me a little worried about what an MMO designed this well could do to my wallet and my free time.

And it’s even better with friends. The reason this is a review-in-progress is because much of my playtime has been on a private press server, which has made duelling, partying up, chatting, and forming guilds challenging. I have managed to join in on the occasional million-hit-point boss battle, kiting around it and dumping abilities for well over half an hour, but I still need more time to run dungeons with companions and see how the ‘massively multiplayer’ pieces of this MMORPG gel with a proper playerbase.

The early verdict though, is that most of Lost Ark is great. The story is bland, even by MMO standards, and some of the quest design is laughably mechanical, but Lost Ark wins out in pretty much every other department. The environmental design is occasionally jaw-dropping, with Skyrim-esque burial tombs secreted away atop snowy mountains, idyllic springtime forests, and deep caverns bisected by thunderous waterfalls. Combat feels expressive and tactile, and there’s huge flexibility to create builds thanks to the multitude of class specialisations. Dungeons and their bosses, meanwhile, combine arena mechanics to create climactic battles that are reminiscent of Super Mario World’s final stages.

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