Amazon Games admits launching Lost Ark’s March update was ‘a mistake’

One week ago, Amazon Games has introduced the first new content on Lost Ark, a month following its Western release. This decision stirred controversy among the player base since this new content was dedicated to the players who already reached the maximum item level available in the game.

Argos, the game’s first Abyss Raid and introduction on high-end content, requires an average item level of 1,370 to be unlocked. It features three phases, each of them requiring a higher item level to be completed. The third phase is only available to players with a minimum of a 1,400 item level.

Related: Asmongold thinks Lost Ark devs need to make big change to avoid losing players

But upgrading gear up until that point requires countless resources, and not many players can either play enough or spend enough money on the game to reach it within only one month. For this reason, this content was only available to the most dedicated part of the player base.

Many fans expressed disappointment, saying it pushed the players to progress faster in the game and encouraged them to spend more money to do so, proving Lost Ark was designed with a pay-to-win model in mind.

In last night’s official roadmap post, Amazon Games officially apologized to the players and admitted to making a mistake by releasing Argos too quickly after launch.

“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,” Amazon Games said. “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.”

Amazon also said its priority was to introduce updates to help players progress through content rather than releasing new high-end content. With that said, it’s likely that the high-end content planned to be released in the previously leaked roadmap will be delayed, as well as the Legion Raids.

On the other hand, more events rewarding tier-three honing materials are planned to be released soon in the game, and new “horizontal content” is expected to be introduced, such as new islands and new advanced classes.