Lost Ark Coming West at Last?

Probably. This news isn’t new — I first saw the announcement some four or five days ago. But despite some outlets at the time claiming it was for sure Lost Ark, I couldn’t find any source explicitly saying so. I had heard there were some Korean publications where Lost Ark was mentioned specifically by name, but I couldn’t locate any. So I figured if that was true, sooner or later some of the west-side articles would begin referencing these sources.

Well… Here we are, some days later and a cursory second glance doesn’t appear to show any additional evidence pointing toward it definitely being Lost Ark.

But! I might be getting ahead of you here. If you haven’t heard yet, here’s the cliff-notes version: Amazon Games has entered into a publishing agreement with Smilegate RPG. Smilegate RPG of course being the developer of Lost Ark.

“Amazon Games today announced it has reached an exclusive publishing agreement for North America and Europe with Korean developer Smilegate RPG. They will collaborate to publish a game releasing next year, with specific details to be revealed at a later date.”

“Smilegate RPG and Amazon Games will combine our respective expertise to introduce one of our AAA games to Western players,” said Chi Won Gil, CEO, Smilegate RPG. “Amazon Games is uniquely positioned as a publisher to reach entirely new audiences through its deep commitment to customers and substantial games publishing resources and channels, including Twitch, Prime Gaming, AWS, and more.”

Looking into it further, I can actually kind of see how the conclusion was reached with such certainty. There is a bit of a misdirect in the press release talking about Smilegate (the parent company) being the developer and publisher of one of the world’s largest FPS’ — Crossfire.

And yeah… If you look at the Smilegate stable of companies, there is quite a bit there to choose from.

But the deal is between Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG specifically… So you know what? Yep. I’ve talked myself around. It’s definitely Lost Ark you guys. Finally!

Can’t wait. :) I really quite enjoyed my time with it and have been looking forward to a more permanent way to play it.