Lost Ark Team Says They "Made a Mistake," Gives Players Free Gift

Lost Ark's big March update released earlier this month with Abyss Raids headlining the patch, but some players were confused as to why that particular feature was releasing so close to the game's launch. Abyss Raids are meant to be an endgame activity that players in Korea had already been taking part in for a while now since that version of the game is further ahead, and while it excited others elsewhere to be able to try them out, some players simply hadn't progressed enough to be able to sufficiently tackle these raids. Smilegate RPG has since apologized for releasing that March update so early and has offered players a gift of a number of free items, too, as a thank you for the community's support.

The talks of the March update and other areas of concern within Lost Ark were shared in a post Smilegate released this week. In there, the devs admitted they made a mistake with the early release of the march update and attributed some of the miscalculations to bots and other factors.

"We made a mistake releasing the March game update too quickly after launch," the devs said. "Data we analyzed alongside Smilegate RPG from their previous launches projected that a larger portion of players would have reached the level required to challenge Argos. However, we overlooked certain variables, such as players spending more time on horizontal content and the price of honing materials increasing due to bots and real-money transactions. These factors contributed to a scarcity of T3 honing materials."

Smilegate said that "players should feel encouraged to progress at whatever pace they're most comfortable with" while suggesting that Legion Raids might be a bit further away now after these learnings. New content is still on the way, however, with a roadmap covering April and May said to be released "in the near future."

While not directly an apology gift, players also have a bundle of free items coming their way. Smilegate said the gift of items listed below is one meant to help players along their journeys and is a "thank you" gift for supporting the game.

  • New Animal Skin Selection Chest
  • Mokokon Pet Selection Chest
  • Moko-board Mount Selection Chest
  • Lost Ark United Structure
  • Appearance Change Ticket
  • Pheons x132
  • Menelik's Tome x5
  • Legendary Card Pack Selection Chest x2
  • Jukebox songs that will be provided when Jukebox content is released in the future.

That gift will be delivered during the week of March 21st, Smilegate said.