Lost Ark had its western release on Friday, and the game is already breaking records. It quickly boosted into second-highest concurrent players on Steam of all time, with a peak of 1.32 million concurrent players. It bested Cyberpunk 2077, as well as Valve's own DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, according to steamdb. The game is also currently the top played game on Steam in the past 24-hours.

The game is only bested by the insanely successful PUBG: Battlegrounds, a game that peaked at 3.25 million concurrent players when it went viral and launched the modern Battle Royale genre a few years ago.

Lost Ark has attacked the attention of many major streamers as well, including helping Asmongold break his all-time viewership record with over 420,000 viewers on Friday in the lead-up to the game's launch. Pokimane, Sodapoppin, CohhCarnage, Mizkiff, and many other top-ranking streamers have played it as part of their streamed content since its launch, and even before its launch, when Lost Ark became the top viewed game on Twitch at over 1.2 million viewers on Wednesday.

While it is difficult to predict long-term interest, Asmongold explained his theory as to why the game is receiving such attention, saying that it "plays like Diablo, but its a better game" with the combat of Diablo, the systems of Path of Exile, and the flavor and personality of Final Fantasy. The game's success has also been aided by the fact that it is a free-to-play game, making it have a very easy barrier to entry over a title that requires a buy-in.