is a game I've really enjoyed, fusing the action RPG gameplay and combat of games like Diablo and Path of Exile with the structure, multiplayer focus, and encounter design of MMOs such as FF14 and World of Warcraft. It even won me over with its increasingly weird and wonderful story. Yet its demanding grind and need to log in for regular daily or weekly checklists to keep up meant that as soon as I took a break, it was hard to come back. Now, Amazon Games is unveiling a dramatic set of plans including an all-new mode, improved grind, and harder challenges for veterans.

When it launched globally in 2022, Lost Ark was the biggest game on Steam by some margin. To this day, the free Steam game still boasts the sixth-highest concurrent player count on the Valve platform, having only been topped in the years since by Black Myth Wukong, Palworld, and most recently Monster Hunter Wilds. The MMORPG is holding onto a respectable player count more than three years on, with typically between 20,000 and 40,000 active users, but Amazon Games is looking to win more people back with a series of major overhauls.

These changes are outlined in a new video from Amazon Games associate franchise lead Matthew Huston, senior product community manager Roxanne Sabo, and former head of editorial Henry Stelter, now a full-time producer on Lost Ark. They begin by thanking players for taking part in the recent survey, discussing three major takeaways. "Players have an appetite for experimental content; hardcore players want additional challenges; and obviously the speed of progression in tier three feels a bit too slow alongside the high costs for both time and resources," Huston says.

To tackle that first request comes the introduction of Paradise, a new experimental, seasonal system that's currently being designed by Smilegate for the global version of Lost Ark. It's designed to be accessible to all players, and will offer ways to boost progression for lower-level characters. Its main mode involves wave-based combat and is a way to earn Legacy of Paradise gear pieces that go into new slots such as belts and cloaks. They'll increase your power within the mode for that season, and provide bonus effects.

Using your newfound Paradise gear, you'll be able to take on two other activities. God's Testimony involves one-on-one boss fights; Stelter notes that the balancing for new items will ensure support characters aren't left in the dust. Each fight earns you first-time clear rewards and other valuable loot, and the better you do, the more Hell Keys you'll earn for your final test. Hell features 100 floors, and you've got to try and get as deep as possible before your key reaches its limit.

Your success in Hell will determine your final payout. Stelter teases some "really juicy" amounts of gold, progression materials, and Paradise gear, with the ability to pick which of several rewards you'd most like to claim. As the season progresses, there will be easy ways to catch up if you've missed some of the early weeks, ensuring that the mode feels more like stress relief rather than another job. As an in-development feature, Stelter notes that some details about Paradise will change before it releases – it might even have a different name.

For more hardcore, veteran players who are seeking something tougher, Amazon Games is planning a range of more challenging missions. The Act 3 raid is arriving in a few weeks, considered "very difficult" by players in Korea. You can look forward to the Strike raid and the Kazeros raid, the latter of which will include a special, ultra-punishing variant. Beyond that, the studio is working on something called challenge mode, "a harder difficulty of raids built with the raiding community in mind."

The July roadmap, when it arrives, will bring more details on Paradise mode, along with the Strike raid and the much-anticipated female Paladin class. That will offer players some flexibility between DPS and Support roles, but Stelter also emphasizes that Smilegate is making Ark passive adjustments to better the life of Support players. "The Support shortage isn't too bad in the west," he says, "but we definitely want the experience of playing it to be fun."

Elsewhere in the video, the team confirms several other welcome changes. The mileage shop is being introduced to the global version of Lost Ark, providing bonus rewards based on what you've bought, and it will cover past purchases when it arrives. The Mokoko Bootcamp is coming back, and will continue to do so, but changes are being made in response to player feedback. Now, the status will be tied to clearing the raid ten times, and there are plans to introduce the system to more encounters in the future.

You can also expect further improvements to roll over from Korean servers, with adjustments for the global version where needed, including fixes for the notorious T3 honing deadzone. Huston says the team is also "aware of the mixed response to the current gem situation in Korea," and that Amazon Games is in the process of discussing what the system will look like when it arrives globally. With so many new cards on the table, 2025 is shaping up to be a great time to check back in on Lost Ark.

If you love smashing apart everything in sight in the quest for loot, keep yourself busy with even more games like Diablo, or maybe one of the best RPGs in 2025.

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