Lost Ark Adding an Entire New Region of Servers to Cope With Immense Player Counts

Lost Ark is adding an entire new region of servers in Europe as the game continues to cope with high player counts following its launch last week that saw it quickly become Steam’s second most-played game of all time.

In a blog post, developer Smilegate said that it’s working “as quickly as possible” to add the new region. While it didn’t say how many servers will be included within that region, Lost Ark’s existing regions range from seven to 19 servers, so you can expect a similar number here.

Players won’t be able to carry over any characters or progress, and Smilegate made clear that the new region is mainly intended for incoming players and for those who’ve not yet committed to a single server.

The studio said it would work on the new region “24/7 until it’s live,” but did warn the addition would take time and lengthy queue times may persist until the new region is implemented.

Smilegate was forced to add more than a dozen new servers to Lost Ark even before it’s official free-to-play launch as the MMO cultivated an immense following that has left it “filled to the brim”.

To celebrate the launch of Lost Ark, however, and perhaps thank fans for their patience, Smilegate is giving all players a bundle of gifts that includes a choice of mount, a skin selection chest, and a number of consumable item chests.

IGN’s review in progress of Lost Ark said it “takes a genuinely impressive stab at the isometric action RPG genre” and the game is “expansive and deep, capable of scratching the itch for a new Diablo-like action RPG that is potentially filled with other players to meet and team up with.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.