Lost Ark’s Open Beta Goes Live in Russia

Lost Ark has been out in South Korea for a while now. Plenty of people have played and enjoyed it over the course of its life but there are still a significant portion of players that couldn’t get in.
This is due to the South Korean version requiring a South Korean social security number along with a South Korean IP.
While it isn’t difficult to obtain a different IP via a VPN – it is very difficult to have an account registered as Social Security numbers aren’t exactly easy to come across.
Thus, a large portion of players interested in the game missed out. That’s all changing though as Lost Ark just launched into Open Beta in Russia. The best part of that is.. all you need is a Russian IP to play it.
Meaning that if you use a VPN – in this case I’d go ahead and use ExitLag which I have a link for in the sidebar – go ahead and use that for a few day free trial – But that means it’s as simple as activating your VPN and playing.

I know, you might be concerned that there is no English translation of the game considering the South Korean version only has a partially functional English translation, and that took a while to get to that point.
However, rest assured there is in fact an English translation that works with the Russian release and is actively updated as well.
Exactly how good the translation is is up for discussion as I have yet to get into the Russian version of the game but Mrs Stix and I will be jumping in sometime over the next couple weeks to do a much more in-depth look at the game.
When last I played I only made it to level 15? level 20? And I was meaning to do a follow-up but it kept getting pushed back.
I’ve been very busy, and the recent release in Russia has given me the motivation to push significantly further through it.
But who knows, since it’s so easily accessible now, maybe I’ll even see some of you guys in-game and be able to play with you!

I’m sure you’re all wondering what the differences are between the South Korean and Russian versions of the game, especially since it’s also launching in China and Japan in the future.
I bet you’re also curious of exactly how long we have to wait before we get the game over here in North America or the rest of Europe, right?
Various Youtuber’s have done dedicated videos on the differences between both versions, but the general gist of things are that the Russian version is more pay to win. Not heavily pay to win, but moreso than the South Korean version.
This is highly disappointing as you know when we finally get an official release over here in the West it’s gonna be by some company like My.com and you know it’s going to be even worse.
But this is just early on in the launch. The Russian version could really go either way as it continues – maybe Russian players will cause enough drama and stir a change.
Just because the game starts off with some pay to win-esque elements, doesn’t mean that it’ll continue to remain so further down development.
I’ll cover that in more detail when I finally get in-game next week but for now.. be careful.
I’m not sure what the Chinese and Japanese versions of the game will be like, whether or not they’ll have pay to win elements or even if they’ll IP Block people outside of their respective countries.
That’ll become more apparent the closer we get to their releases.

Even though the game has released in 2 countries thus far, and is currently preparing to release in 2 additional countries in the immediate future, mention of a North American release is still.. well, absent.
Yes, the game is releasing in more and more countries around the world. Yes, I and a lot of other players still vehemently believe that the game will release in the West.
Smilegate is just stringing us on with little to no information on the subject though, knowing full well exactly how desparate the market over here is for it.
Or maybe it really isn’t – maybe Smilegate are aware that the game isn’t going to appeal to audiences over here and that’s why they’re neglecting to update us on Western progress.
Who knows, maybe they’re of the opinion that it really won’t do very well and they’re opting to just remain silent.. that way they don’t receive any backlash from not releasing it over here.
I guess only time will tell.

Regardless, Lost Ark is currently live in South Korea. You need a Social Security number to play the game along with a South Korean IP.
Lost Ark is currently live in Russia. You only need a Russian IP – which again, you can get as ExitLag, specifically, works 100% with the Russian version of the game.
There are English fan translations for both the South Korean and Russian versions of the games. You can find them on the unofficial Lost Ark Discord servers, along with info on how to go about installing them.
Since the Russian version of the game is located much closer to Europe than the South Korean version of the game, European players are expected to get significantly better ping now that you’re not connecting to a South Korean server of the game.

And that’s pretty much it. That’s all the Lost Ark info I have right now.
You can jump right in and begin playing the game if you set it to download right now. You can finally test whether or not the game is worth playing before it – potentially releases over here sometime in the next year or two.
I will be for sure, and I hope I get to see a bunch of you guys in-game playing so at the very least you can carry me through content as I’ll no doubt suck at this game.