The Lost Ark playercount has peaked at just over 500,000 players on its first Head Start day -- and Smilegate & Amazon Games' ARPG has yet to officially launch in the West.
Lost Ark is an MMOARPG that's been out in Korea for quite a few years now. It was largely exclusive to the Asian region until Amazon Games announced that it would be publishing the game in the West. In the time since then, last year's closed beta proved to be fairly popular and the developer detailed its plans for launch. Now, the first day of Lost Ark's "Head Start" has arrived -- and it's proven to be immensely popular.
Staggering Lost Ark Playercount is Just the Start
The Lost Ark playercount has peaked at 525,359 players at the time of writing according to SteamDB (via Reddit). Considering that it was around 511,259 when I started writing this 15 minutes ago, it looks like this game is going to be a smashing success.
500,000+ peak players is pretty damn good, but it gets even more impressive -- this Lost Ark playercount only covers the people who purchased a Founder's Pack and got into the 3-day "Head Start" program. The game doesn't officially launch until February 11, 2022, so we may very well see an even higher playercount later in the week.
Mind, this playercount may not show the true picture of how many people want to actually play the game -- discussions on the /r/lostarkjame subreddit detail massive queues in excess of 10,000 players in some cases, so there are a bunch of people who can't even get into the game. It's also the early afternoon on the East Coast -- odds are, we'll see the playercount climb even higher as people get home from school and work throughout the United States.
For now, it looks like you won't have any shortage of people to play with in Lost Ark. You can pre-purchase Lost Ark for PC via Steam starting at $14.99 or your regional equivalent for the Bronze Founder's Pack and get Head Start access to the game right now; otherwise, you can play Lost Ark for free when it officially launches on February 11, 2022. Make sure to check out our Beginner's Guide to help get your journey started!
What do you think of the Lost Ark playercount? Do you think the game will manage to sustain these numbers in the long term? Let us know in the comments below!