Lost Ark’s Korean class balance updates won’t land in the west until January 2024

Last week saw a bit of bad news for western fans of Lost Ark when Amazon Games confirmed that class adjustments made to the Korean version wouldn’t be coming in the Soul Harvest update, though the publisher did promise that it would elaborate to fans why. That post has come and it carries with it a bit more bad news as it projects a January 2024 launch window for these hotly anticipated class updates.

The explanation Amazon gives is centered around what it calls “base builds” – aka the Korean version of the game sent by Smilegate RPG to the west – which include “hundreds” of updates from UI to content to character changes. These large numbers of changes take time to test, and sometimes features are either removed due to their specificity to the Korean version or rearranged to fit the western version’s progression, after which more testing has to happen.

All told, Amazon gets base builds every three months, meaning that the October base build that houses these class balance adjustments won’t land on our shores until sometime in January.

“We appreciate your passion for Lost Ark and excitement for the recent changes in Korea, and we know that many players would like to see balance updates released more quickly in the west,” Amazon writes. “Amazon Games is working with Smilegate RPG to look into how we can make this happen outside of the base build system we currently use, and we’re working hard to bring you more good news in the future.”

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