'Lost Ark,' What To Know About The Game Breaking Steam Records

If you've logged on to Steam in the past few days, chances are that you've seen a considerable amount of your friends playing something called Lost Ark. You might have shrugged it off as an anime reimagining of the Indiana Jomes classic, but even though we still don't know the entirety of its plot, we're just going to boldly assume that's not what it is about. Despite being mostly unknown outside of Korea until recently, Lost Ark is a Diablo-style action role-playing adventure from 2019 that only very recently made its way to Occidental shores. And boy, it came not just to visit, but to totally conquer them. In just a few days, Lost Ark became the biggest game on Steam after dethroning mainstays like CS: GO, Daikatana, and Dota 2.

So, the game looks pretty neat and all, but why go for an off-brand Diablo when Diablo 3 is still available? Well, while we'd like to believe it's in part a retaliation against Activision Blizzards' mistreatment of employees, it's mostly because Lost Ark's combat absolutely owns. Whereas Diablo makes cool-looking gore and does combat well, Ark completely nails the feel of combat, which in turn makes the gore feel way more rewarding. The developer made use of something called hit stops, a feature that very satisfyingly conveys impact by stopping the game for a millisecond whenever you hit an enemy. And if that's cool when you hit a single enemy, it's glorious when you hit a dozen.