Lost Ark NA and EU releases may skip 2020 as Smilegate focuses on Japan

New info is surfacing regarding the Lost Ark NA and EU releases, which were officially confirmed over a year ago. Apparently, the highly anticipated MMORPG may miss 2020 due to several aspects. These details should be taken with a grain of salt, as they are conflicting with other Lost Ark reports – for example, one where another source claimed that Smilegate said “next year” [2020], overseas expansion would begin in a serious way. However, we also have the Lost Ark English localization job offers which are fairly recent and could hint that there is a lot of work to be done.

The news comes from Altchar, which claims that Korean site The Bell had the scoop on the Lost Ark English release state of affairs. The source says that Smilegate currently has no plans for North American and European Lost Ark releases, choosing instead to focus on the existing versions and the incoming Japanese release.

Don't Miss: Lost Ark Release Date | Korea, Russia, Japan, China, North America, Europe

Furthermore, localization is said to be the critical issue for Smilegate to progress with the Lost Ark western release. It is mentioned that it takes quite some time to fully translate all the subtitles and record the English voice over. Adding this to the work that the Japanese server requires, the team has their hands busy and no time to launch Lost Ark in the west during 2020.

We've just entered 2020 and it sounds a bit premature to exclude even a Lost Ark alpha or beta test before the year ends. Besides, the same source also claims that Lost Ark's popularity in Korea is waning at a significant rate due to the “poor endgame” and what players call “pay to progress.”

While we have no way of confirming this, it's pretty common to see a game lose a substantial portion of its player base after its initial launch boost – it happens with every game, even the most successful ones like Fortnite. Lost Ark had a huge open beta launch in Korea, becoming one of the most played games and bringing in tons of cash for Smilegate. The challenge is to get those numbers back up slightly, a task that takes time and a lot of work. Either way, it doesn't seem like Lost Ark is going through a rough patch in Korea.

Lost Ark recently entered open beta in Russia and Japan is the next territory to get this free action MMORPG. Are the Lost Ark NA and EU releases happening in 2020? What do you think?