Lost Ark smashes CS:GO and Dota 2 Steam records

Lost Ark, the newly released action RPG from Smilegate and Amazon Games, has soared its way up the Steam charts since launching on February 11, 2022.

The Korean Diablo-like free-to-play title drew in well over a million players within its first 24 hours, according to the latest data from SteamDB. At its peak, Lost Ark boasted a total of 1,325,305 concurrent players on Steam, the second highest count ever recorded.

This puts Lost Ark ahead of some serious heavy hitters including tactical shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1,308,963) and mega-popular MOBA, Dota 2 (1,295,114). However, it failed to top battle royale sensation, PUBG, which still holds the top spot with an insane all-time peak of 3,257,248.

These impressive numbers are sure to please Amazon Games. Having failed to get off the mark with earlier projects, the company now has two big hits under the belt following last year’s New World.

Lost Ark has continued to pop up over the years, launching in South Korea back in 2019 where it still enjoys a fervent fanbase. Seeing its potential, Amazon teamed up with Smilegate to localise the RPG and bring it west. Those who wanted in on the action ahead of day one were able to enter three days early thanks to the Lost Ark founder’s pack deal.

As with any breakout game, it will be interesting to see how the player count numbers change over time.

Lost Ark’s promise of deep player customisation, cinematic action, an exciting multiplayer has certainly been a hit with gamers looking for a new entry to the genre. Being free-to-play has no doubt had a major impact on its popularity.

Lost Ark – the best games like Diablo

Naturally, there will be console players wondering what all the fuss is about. Currently, there are no official plans to release Lost Ark on consoles with no version available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch. That’s not to say this will never happen – over the years we’ve seen similar dungeon crawling games make their way to consoles include Diablo III and Path of Exile.