Lost Ark tops 1.32 million concurrent players on Steam over launch weekend

Lost Ark eclipsed 1.32 million concurrent players on Steam during its launch weekend, according to the latest figures from third-party tracker SteamDB.

The fantasy MMO had already topped 532,000 concurrent players thanks to the use of "founder's packs" that allowed eager players to begin exploring ahead of the title's official free-to-play launch.

After making it's official debut, however, Lost Ark built on that pre-release momentum to deliver an all-time peak of 1,325,305 concurrent players over the weekend.

For context, that's the second highest concurrent peak in Steam history -- beaten only by PUBG: Battlegrounds' record of 3.2 million -- and places Lost Ark above popular titles including Counter Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2 (as shown in the table below).

Lost Ark was previously released in South Korea in 2019, but has now been brought to the West by Amazon Games. Earlier today, developer Smilegate explained the title's servers are "filled to the brim" and said it would be working as quickly as possible to establish a new region of servers in Europe.

Due to the MMO's instant popularity, the studio noted that "lengthy queue times may persist" and said it will need more time to ensure the infrastructure is in place to allow all players to get in the game.

"We’re blown away by the number of players that have joined us in Lost Ark since our launch on Friday. Arkesia is filled to the brim with eager players, so we’re working as quickly as possible to set up an entirely new region of servers in Europe," wrote the company.

"Due to the game’s architecture this is the only way to accommodate more players in Europe so it’s a joint effort between Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG. Rest assured we are working 24/7 until it’s live."