Lost Ark western publisher is Amazon Games, release planned for 2021

After several years of waiting, we have official confirmation that the Lost Ark western publisher is Amazon Games. The announcement was made by Amazon itself, although the press release doesn't disclose the name of the game yet. However, further digging revealed that the Korean press already knows that the deal is to bring Lost Ark to North America and Europe in 2021.

Smilegate is the Korean studio that found massive success with CrossFire, its first-person shooter. The other big title of the studio is Lost Ark, so when Amazon Games reaches an “exclusive publishing agreement for North America and Europe with Korean developer Smilegate RPG [subsidiary of Smilegate]”, there aren't many questions left unanswered. The press release adds that the collaboration is to “publish a game releasing next year,” which means that 2021 is the official Lost Ark release date in NA and EU.

The agreement includes the following:

“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.”

By “one of our AAA games” we can only read Lost Ark. Furthermore, the Korean website mentioned above clearly mentions Lost Ark, so unless there's a M. Night Shyamalan twist in store for all of us, this is the real deal.

The western launch of Lost Ark has been teased for a few years. SmileGate CEO Kwon Hyuk-Bin confirmed that much in 2018, probably a sign that you shouldn't talk too much about something that is years away. The western localization was no secret, hinted at by job offers looking for English translators. Lost Ark Mobile is a thing as well, a project that has been revealed once again via job offers.

Amazon Games is the new studio that has been struggling to release a hit game. After the failure of its sports MOBA Breakaway and the botched release of hero shooter Crucible – one of the few games that went from released back to closed beta -, there's also the MMORPG New World. In this specific case, there's a lot of potential to it, but the launch was delayed into 2021 to further polish the game and release it without major issues.

There's also a free-to-play AAA online game based on the works of The Lord of the Rings, along with other unannounced projects. Could 2021 be the year of Amazon Games?