Lost Ark, the wildly popular new game from Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG, goes free to play today. Here’s how to get in on the fun.
Lost Ark, Amazon and Smilegate RPG's Action Role Playing Game MMO, is going fully free to play today after a wildly successful early access. Want to download Lost Ark and get in on the fun? Don't worry, we've got you covered.
The game has already proven to be a smash hit on Twitch, debuting to over a million viewers during its launch. And thanks to the game going free to play, it looks to be a challenger to incumbents in both the ARPG and MMO space like Path of Exile and Final Fantasy 14.
How to download Lost Ark
- Download Steam. If you don't have a Steam account, you'll have to create an account with Valve.
- Go to the Store tab.
- Search for Lost Ark. Also, given that the game just released, it's been featured off and on on the store frontpage.
- Click "Download"
- You'll be prompted on where you'd like to save the game, or where to initialize your Steam library, if this is your first game being downloaded.
Once the game is downloaded, just click Launch and you're good to go. One note, though. In our playtests, the game tends to hang a bit while it's initiating the first time. This is especially true if you're running the game off a traditional HDD and not an SSD. Typically, you'll see the game's splash art on your screen for about a minute before it fully boots up.
Get free Lost Ark loot while you wait for it to download
Lost Ark isn't a particularly huge game, but you're still going to have to wait for it to download. While you're doing that, you may as well be earning some free loot. If you have a Twitch account, you can get free drops for watching the game for four hours. In order to do so, though, you'll have to make sure your account is linked between Twitch and Steam.
Doing so is a straightforward process. Just head over to Lost Ark's website, go to the Lost Ark Twitch drops page. There, it will prompt you to sign in to your Twitch account, and then link up your Steam account. If you have two factor authentication turned on, you'll need to use your email to log in, so make sure to have that open. Then you can click Activate.
Doing so will give you access to the following drops:
- Battle Item chest:
Contains a Battle Item Chest 3 Pack, Regulus' Light Currency Chest (100K Silver), and an Amethyst Shard Pack (1,500 Shards).
- Arkesia Paper Hat Chest
This chest will unlock one of five unique paper hats
- Helgaia Pet Chest
This chest will unlock 1 of four unique Helgaia pets.
- Neugier Gold Mount
This mount will allow you to speedily move throughout Arkesia.
Prime Gaming gives powerful advantages in Lost Ark
Additionally, linking your Steam and Twitch accounts will give you access to the Prime Gaming drops for the month. This includes several days' worth of Celestial Aura, which is Lost Ark's psuedo-subscription service. This offers a few key benefits, namely being able to use the in-game teleporters without using silver, the in-game currency. That same Prime Gaming benefit is worth 100,000 silver per time it comes up, with 5 more drops to come.
Clearly Amazon is leveraging Twitch in a compelling way with Lost Ark, and could be a hint at further development for their games down the line. It's taken awhile for Amazon to have some certified hits on their hands, but with New World and now Lost Ark, they've found a somewhat winning strategy.
For more on Lost Ark, including guides for the game as it fully releases today, stay tuned to Esports.gg.